FatePorta Caeli
by Dagoron
Summary: Two years following the end of the Holy Grail War, Servants are mysteriously summoned to come to the aid of their Masters as a threat to the world begins to move in the shadows. Shirou, Rin, Illya, and many others find themselves in a race against time as dark forces work against them.
1. Chapter 1

**Day 1: 1:35 PM - Fuyuki City: City Proper**  
Sucking in the crisp winter air sent a shiver down the young man's spine. He jostled around in his jacket to drive away the cold; fortunately it worked. Walking along the bustle and hustle of the city streets, his attention was immediately caught by someone calling out his name, "Shirou! Hey Shirou!"

Shirou Emiya turned to face whoever it was trying to get his attention. He was slightly above average for men his age which made it easy to spot the person waving at him through the crowd. He let out a sigh and tousled his bright orange hair. Rin Tohsaka, a long time friend and now occasional co-worker, was quickly making her way through the flood of people toward him.

She was about half a head shorter than him with dark black hair; presently is was tied into twin tails held up by two charcoal colored ribbons. She was dressed in a long red jacket, a white polo neck jumper, a black mini skirt, and long leather boots. Rin stopped to catch her breath when she caught up with him. Eventually she stood erect and smiled, "Good afternoon Shirou."

"Afternoon Tohsaka. What are you doing in Fuyuki? I wasn't expecting you back from London for another couple of months."

"I'm here on a job," Rin answered.

 _That makes sense_ , Shirou thought to himself.

It had been a little over a year since Rin and Shirou had graduated from senior high and while the two had both decided to continue their educations, their paths were vastly different. Rin had applied to and been accepted by a prestigious group known as the Mage's Association to attend formal training in London, England with the goal of furthering her magecraft. She had also taken up a position on the Mages Council in a probationary capacity; she often did a number of tasks for them all around the world (these extracurricular activities counted positively toward her courses).

Shirou on the other hand had decided to remain in Fuyuki and take on an apprenticeship with the local blacksmith. This helped him keep up on a lot of his magical strengths. He also found himself occasionally assisting Rin with jobs that were in or near Fuyuki. Her arrival now indicated that he was probably going to have to call out of work.

Letting out a sigh, Shirou asked, "How can I help you this time?"

The smile on Rin's face twisted into a scowl, "No 'How are you, Rin?' No 'How was London, Rin?' No nothing?"

Shirou chuckled slightly, "Sorry Tohsaka. Just figured if we got your job out out the way we'd have more time to chat and catch up."

Rin maintained her scowl as she scrutinized Shirou. After apparently deciding she was satisfied with his answer her face softened slightly and she started, "Fine. But you owe me dinner. Your house will suffice."

As she stood more erect in an attempt to make her demand feel more official, Shirou chuckled again, "Understood. Now what does the Mage's Association need you to do in Fuyuki?

Rin didn't answer immediately, she instead grabbed his arm and steered him away from the crowded sidewalk into an empty side street. She looked around as if to make sure that they were in fact alone before whispering, "What I'm about to tell you does not go beyond us, understood?"

She waited for Shirou to nod before continuing, "After a couple weeks of research and verification, the Mages Council has confirmed that magical ley lines all over the planet are shorting out. Their stores of magic energies are disappearing and what remains of the leylines are violently exploding. Some of these explosions are so powerful whole towns are destroyed."

Shirou blinked at her, shocked, "Are you serious?"

"Very," Rin replied, "Now I've already checked out Ryuudou Temple; the ley line there is stable for the moment. I've also checked out Central Park. The leyline running through there doesn't seem to be in any danger of rupturing. The only one left I have to check is in the middle of the woods out by the Einzbern Mansion. Figured I'd wait to have you there in case Illyia decides to make trouble."

"Well you won't have to worry about her," explained Shirou, "She left town last week to head back to Germany. Her grandfather apparently passed away and she's going to be taking on the mantle of the head of her family."

"I see…" Rin said, her voice trailing off as she cataloged the new information in her mind.

Disrupting the silence, Shirou continued, "And what exactly do you want me to do to help you?"

Rin refocused on Shirou and said, "I want you to try and reinforce the ley line with your magic if it's unstable."

"Reinforce an object that has no physical form?" Shirou half laughed, "I'm flattered that you're now thinking highly of my skills as a magus, but I can't do that!"

This drew another scowl from Rin, "I've always acknowledged your magical skills, despite their rudimentary concepts. And are you saying you won't even try? The very fabric of the planet's natural magics are at stake and you won't even make an attempt to try and help fix it?"

Shirou threw up his hands defensively as Rin laid into him, "Whoa whoa whoa! I never said I wouldn't try! Just don't expect me to actually be of any help!"

Rin placed her hands on her hips, clearly dissatisfied with his answer, "Hmph..."

The young woman quickly twisted Shirou around so that he was facing back out toward the main street and began pushing him toward it. Shirou resisted only for a moment before giving in and stumbling forward onto the road. He let out an exasperated sigh and mumbled, "Let's go."

 **Day 1: 2:47 PM - Fuyuki City - Einzbern Forest**  
The walk to the edge of Fuyuki was long and filled with little conversation. The sun was high in the sky as they entered the pathway leading into the forest. Stepping past the treeline, Shirou and Rin instantly felt the change of pressure in the atmosphere. The air was heavy with magical energy and so thick you could cut it with a knife.

"Looks like we're just in time," Rin stated, "This leyline is definitely in trouble."

Rin quickly took the lead, trying to pinpoint the center of the leyline. Shirou followed close behind keeping an eye for any danger. It didn't take long for Rin to locate their target, but the walk there took forever. After almost an hour of walking, her direction deposited the two in a small clearing with a large circle of rocks surrounding the perimeter. Shirou exhaled sharply as he moved into the ring; the crushing sensation of the dense magical energies was forcing the breath from his lungs. He glanced at Rin and was surprised to see her not faring much better. Her abilities as a magus had always allowed her to remain comfortable in places he thought were similar to this one, but now she was taking deep breaths and making a visible effort to stand upright.

Rin pointed to the center of the field and managed, "There...that's...where you're going to...want to...try and...reinforce the...leyline."

Shirou nodded and slowly made his way to the circle's central point. Reaching it, he found it took everything he had to remain standing. He knelt down and placed a hand on the ground. His breathing labored, he closed his eyes and murmured, "Trace...on!"

Magical energy streamed through the magic circuits in his arm and into the ground. As it did so he said, "Analyzing component mater-"

He was cut off as a slew of information flooded into his mind. Surprised that he gained any response at all, Shirou was suddenly able to visualize a massive globule deep beneath him. From the globe spanned hundreds of veins of normally invisible magical energies. As his trace expanded the entire network, he found numerous breaks in the veins themselves. Deciding that was where his focus needed to be, he channeled his magics to those points and began repairing and strengthening them as much as he could. It took less than a minute, but when he finally relinquished his attention on his work, he found that the pressure in the area was immensely relieved.

Shirou fell back, suddenly very drained. His efforts had made him more exhausted than he'd anticipated. He heard Rin run up next to him and exclaim, "Shirou! You did it! You actually did it!"

"I know," Shirou tiredly chuckled.

Rin grinned at him, "I told you you could do it."

"I know," Shirou repeated, returning her smile.

Rin held out a hand. Shirou took it and was helped to his feet. He dusted himself off and took a moment to take in the normalness of the area; the ordeal, while only lasting mere minutes, had been extraordinarily trying. He exhaled sharply and frowned; he was out of shape. Eventually he broke the silence by asking, "So, Tohsaka, now what?"

Rin glanced around, reassuring herself that everything had settled, before answering, "Dinner."

"So there's nothing else we have to do?"

"Nope. Now we got back to your place and you cook me dinner."

"Got it," Shirou chuckled.

As Rin moved in front of him to take the lead, Shirou took one last look around. Despite how natural things had returned to, he still felt like something was slightly off. When he heard Rin calling back to him, he shook his head to dispel any concerns he had and began to catch up with his companion.

 **Day 1: 7:21 PM - Fuyuki City: Emiya Residence**  
Rin did her best to not obviously salivate at the small banquet sitting on the table in front of her. She looked up at Shirou, who was still in the kitchen, and asked, "Was all of this really necessary?"

Shirou turned his head as he finished up with the last of the food and said, "Sorry, force of habit. I'm used to Fuji-nee, I mean Ms. Fujimura coming over for dinner. You know how much she eats."

Rin smiled and nodded, understanding completely. She gave a small chuckle as she said, "Speaking of Ms. Fujimura, where is she?"

"If you can believe it," Shirou started as he exited the kitchen, the steaming rice cooker in his hands, "on a date."

Rin was in the middle of sipping her cup of tea and his comment made her inhale mid-sip; she began coughing rather hard as the hot water went down the wrong pipe. Her coughing gradually transformed into strained laughter, "Taiga Fujimura! On a date?!"

Shirou nodded, grinning as he affirmed, "Yep. It's actually her fourth date with the same man."

"No way! Who is he?"

"No idea," shrugged Shirou, "She hasn't brought him by or told me his name. She's keeping him as secret as she can."

"Darn," Rin scowled, disappointed by the lack of information. Shirou bobbed his head in agreement as he began serving up the food.

The start of dinner marked the start of catching up. Rin explained in detail her numerous classes. In her excitement, she revealed she'd found a new form of experimental magic involving golems to come exceedingly natural to her. When she realized how much she'd divulged, she quickly changed the subject explaining she wasn't supposed to go public with the project yet. Her reminiscing then trailed into accounts of London and its scenery including the clocktower she now called home. Dinner was just about done by the time she finished catching Shirou up.

Shirou swallowed the last of his rice and said, "It certainly sounds like you're in your element, Tohsaka. I'm glad you've settled in so nicely in London."

He emphasized his sincerity by giving her a wide grin. Rin responded in kind and shifted the conversation toward Shirou, "So what about you? What have you been up to while I've been gone?"

Shirou's grin faded slightly as he said, "Nothing nearly as exciting as what you've gotten to experience."

"I'm still curious," Rin pouted.

"Well," Shirou started, "I've spent most of my time at Mr. Kirigaya's smithy. We've had a ton of work recently and I haven't often had a day off. Calling out today probably seemed really strange to him."

"I didn't get you in trouble with your boss, did I?" Rin frowned, concerned.

Shirou shook his head, "No! Not at all. I told him a friends was in town for just a short while and I needed a day off to catch up with them. He didn't mind. We got most of our work load done yesterday so today was an easy day."

"Okay..." nodded Rin, obviously still a little worried.

Shirou took a moment, trying to think of something else. Finally he added, "Aside from that, I've basically just been sorting through some old books that apparently belonged to my dad and his family."

"Books?" Rin inquired.

"Yeah," nodded Shirou, "They seem to have a lot of the Emiya family magical lore."

Rin's jaw dropped, "What?!"

Shirou raised any eyebrow, "Mhmm. A couple of boxes full of different things showed up on my front porch with a note explaining everything about them. Did you want to look through them, Tohsaka?"

Rin slammed her hands on the table. Shirou immediately realized he was getting an angry look. The young woman in front of him pinched the bridge of her nose, "Even after almost three years, you still don't understand. A mage family's magics are the most important thing one must protect. You never show any other mage your magical texts even if they're your friend."

"But you told me what magic your family specialized in," Shirou pointed out, slightly confused.

Grimacing, Rin nodded and elaborated, "True, but I only told you what my family's magic is called. I never told you the mechanics behind how it works. Family tomes are going to specify every tiny detail of how your magic works. You need to guard those with your life!"

Shirou let out a sigh, "Fine. I'll lock them up."

He paused a moment before asking, "Well now what do you want to-"

A pulse of magical energy coursed through the room, interrupting him. Both were instantly on their feet. It was so potent and so close, the two of them immediately knew where it had come from. It had originated in or around the storage house in Shirou's back yard. Rin quickly made her way out of the living room and began moving through the hallways to get outside. Shrio scrambled after her and shouted, "Tohsaka! Wait!"

He caught up with her just as she was stepping onto the patio. She stopped and turned, hastily snapping, "What?"

Shirou hesitated, thinking for a moment, before saying, "Stay here. I'll check it out by myself. It could be dangerous."

Rolling her eyes, Rin proceeded into the yard, saying, "Shirou, I've fought against Servants in the Holy Grail War. I doubt whatever that pulse was will be more dangerous than a Servant."

Rin was almost to the door of the shed when Shirou skidded to a stop in front of her, "Tohsaka, please. I'll check it out and if I need your help I'll shout."

Rin looked at him unamused. Shirou relaxed a little when he thought Rin was going to concede; big mistake. The moment his shoulders slouched Rin placed a hand them and shoved him to the side. Shirou went sprawling to the ground and Rin moved to open the door. As she did so, Shirou called out, "Tohsaka!"

The door was thrown open despite his protests. Rin froze as she registered what was in front of her. Before she had left, the store house had been cluttered and full of boxed and other junk; Shirou had been using it as a place to practice his magic for years. Now it was virtually empty save for a massive, intricate circle etched into the ground. Complex runes encircled a larger, tribal looking symbol. It filled the entire room. Rin recognized what it was immediately. While some things were missing and others added, Rin was positive it was some sort of summoning circle; more specifically a summoning circle that was incredibly similar to the ones used to summon Servants.

Rin heard Shirou move up behind her, "Tohsaka I can explain."

The magus turned to face her friend, frowning. She took a deep breath and exhaled before stating, "No need. I already know what you're doing. You're trying to summon her, aren't you?"

Around two and a half years earlier, Rin and Shirou had participated in an event known as the Holy Grail War. Seven mages from around the world were selected by an artifact known as the Holy Grail to be masters of powerful spiritual beings called Servants. Both Shirou and Rin were masters and had allied together to fend off their opponents. Over the course of the war, Shirou and his Servant became romantically involved despite a number of obstacles that tried to hinder the relationship. Unfortunately the true intent behind the war was made known to them: the "Holy Grail" was, in fact, a vessel that contained the entirety of the world's evil and malice and the war was a front for it as it tried to manipulate the victor into giving it full form. The two were forced to destroy the Grail to keep it from manifesting, but it came at the cost of all the Servants that had been summoned by the Grail returning to their own time making it impossible for the relationship between them to continue. Following the conclusion of the war, Shirou had confided in Rin that, while saddened by his loss, he had made peace with what had happened.

Rin pointed this out, "I thought you'd come to terms with her being gone. Why are you doing this now?"

"I was! I am...I…" Shirou's voice trailed off and he attempted to compose an answer. He eventually said, "Back then I had recognized that what had happened was final and I was content with the time I got to share with her, but recently…"

Shirou became reticent again as he thought over his next words. Becoming somewhat impatient as the silence dragged on, Rin cut into his thoughts, "While you're trying to figure out how to explain to me your reasoning behind this, maybe you can tell me how in the heck you learned about this type of summoning circle."

"Ah. Well I actually came across that in one of the books that I got. It's apparently some sort of prototype circle that allows for the summoning of heroic spirits without the need for the Holy Grail."

Rin's eyes widened, "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," Shirou nodded, "But I haven't gotten it to work. It hasn't responded at all to anything I've tried and I've been going at this for weeks."

"Weeks?" asked Rin, a twinge of concern laced in her inquiry.

He let out a breath of air as he began to explain, "The reason I'm trying to summon her...It's because...I-"

Before Shirou could complete his sentence, he noticed something behind Rin. His eyes widened as he realized the summoning circle was beginning to glow. Rin caught on to Shirou's distracted gaze and turned around. A small gasp escaped her lips as the glowing became more intense. The wind picked up and the light emitting from the circle became too great to look at. Rin and Shirou shielded their eyes and were bathed in a brilliant, white light. As the light died down, the two blinked away the blackness from their vision.

Shirou's heart skipped a beat when he saw what the light had revealed. A figure stood in the center of the circle clad in an old fashioned blue dress with gold trim slightly darker than the color of her hair which was tied in a braided bun. An elegant, silver breastplate rested over her chest and two large gauntlets protected her hands and forearms. Piercing green eyes gazed into Shirou's with identical amounts of shock. The stillness that had settled in was fragmented by a soft voice, "Shirou? Is that you?"

Shirou took a step forward, still not completely believing what was in front of him. In response he managed, "Yeah...it's me...Saber."

As soon as he said her name, Saber's face contorted into a serious facade; something was wrong. Her head snapped to the window of the storehouse and she called out, "Everyone find cover!"

Shirou and Rin immediately looked around and briefly saw a small blue dot floating in the air a great distance away. Given its location it seemed to be at or near the Einzbern mansion. The scene was only visible for a second. The dot moved slightly upwards and then shot down toward the ground so fast it was like it just disappeared from sight. Absolute silence took hold of the entire city. Not a sound managed to escape into the night. Then, without warning, a vacuum-like sensation manifested so powerful that Shirou and Rin were both dragged a couple feet into the yard. The instant the drag let up the surrounding area was lit up like it was daytime. The two mages saw the explosion before they heard or felt it. A fireball erupted from the ground and launched into the sky, bypassing the cloud cover with ease. The entirety of their field of vision bore witness to the base of the explosion.

Then came the sound. A monstrous roar echoed deafeningly throughout the whole of Fuyuki shattering every ounce of glass in the Emiya household and even splintering a few wooden supports. Despite its considerable distance away, the sound was so intense Shirou's eyes began seeing black. Finally he felt it. A rush of force hit Shirou like a freight train and lifted him off his feet. He felt numerous snaps inside his body as bones shattered from the impact. He flew through the air and cleared the wall surrounding his house. He crashed through some shrubbery and hit the ground like a rock. His vision started to blacken as he dipped into unconsciousness, but he managed to hold on long enough to faintly see Saber appear over top of him. She seemed to be saying something; her lips were moving, but the explosion had made it impossible for him to hear anything at that moment. His final image was that of a horrified Saber materializing an object from thin air into her hands and placing it on his chest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Day ?: ?:? ? - ?**  
Blackness. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but blackness. A vast abyss extended into infinity and Shirou found himself floating helplessly through it. For what felt like hours he drifted through the nothingness. Eventually his drifting ceased and a glint in the distance caught his attention. He struggled to right himself so as to get a better view. Underneath what looked like a spotlight was a slender figure. Slumped over, the shape was being suspended in the air with numerous chains. Shiro, even from a distance, recognized the battered armor and torn dress. It was Saber.

Shirou immediately began fighting against the weightlessness trying to close the distance. He opened his mouth the call out to her, but no words escaped his lips. His struggling, however, seemed to capture her focus. Saber groggily raised her head. Blood caked the side of her face and her eyes were glossed over. The amount of energy she had to be using to keep conscious was obviously a lot.

Seeing her buffeted face incited a stronger effort from Shirou to get to her. He attempted to vent his frustration with a roar, but, again, no sound left his mouth. He ceased his movement as her heard her voice. It was just loud enough to barely make it to his ears, but he registered it nonetheless, "Shi...ro...help...me"

Reaching out in vain, Shirou tried to touch her. As he did so, the darkness pulsated and quickly began to swallow Saber's form, ceasing any chance he had of achieving his goal. Finally his will and rage overtook the silence and he bellowed, "SABER!"

Shirou was suddenly in freefall. The already fading light that was situated on Saber quickly grew distant as he plummeted below. His rapid descent didn't last long. The unseeable ground rushed up to meet him. Shirou felt, briefly, the shock of his body impacting the surface.

 **Day 1: 8:53 PM - Fuyuki City: Emiya Residence**  
Shirou sat bolt up and immediately regretted it. His entire body throbbed with pain. As he took a moment to steady his breathing, he heard the familiar call calm of Saber's voice next to him, "Shirou. Are you alright?"

He sorely turned his head and found himself virtually face to face with the knight. Shirou gasped, not expecting to find her so close, and scooted back...right into someone else. Shirou heard someone fall on the ground followed by Rin's voice shouting, "Ow! You dolt!"

Turning his attention to Rin, he saw that she had landed hard on her behind. She growled at him, but was unable to say anything before Saber cut in, "Rin, do you know what happened?"

Maintaining her glare at Shirou, Rin stood up and brushed herself off. As Shirou followed suit Rin explained, "Based on where I think it was, I believe the Einzbern ley line exploded."

"What?" Shirou exclaimed, "I thought we fixed that!"

"Obviously not," Rin snapped, venom lacing her voice.

She felt the anger bubbling inside her. She grit her teeth and tried to calm down. Rin wasn't angry with Shirou and, from the expression of concern on his face in response to her bark, she could tell he knew that. Her fury was directed at herself; she'd failed her mission, she'd been sloppy in her excitement to be home and that had resulted in this disaster. Shirou seemed to read her mind as he started plainly, "This isn't your fault."

Rin let out a sarcastic laugh, "Oh it isn't? I should have double and triple and quadruple checked the ley line. If I had done that-"

"You wouldn't have found anything," Shirou interjected, "I may not be able to sense magic as well as you can, but I touched the ley line and it was fixed. There was nothing you could do because we did everything in our power."

Rin frowned. Shirou's words were kind and he was probably right, but her disposition only minutely improved. Saber once again interjected into their conversation, "If you are both well, I suggest we make our way to the epicenter of the explosion to see if there is evidence behind its origins."

Nodding, Rin suppressed any self loathing she had and said, "I agree. Walking, however, would take too long. Stand back."

Saber and Shirou both did as she asked and Rin began chanting. In seconds a large crystalline disk materialized between the group. Rin stepped on and ushered the other two to follow suit. The did so and Rin said, "Hold on."

The disk shuttered before rapidly rising into the air. Finally the group was able to survey the damage. What they saw drew a collective gasp from all of them; the carnage was incomprehensible. Far in the distance almost nothing remained of the forest that belonged to the Einzberns. Trees within the inner third of the total forest (easily 10 kilometers of greenery) had been vaporized. In their place was an expansive crater that was full of black smoke and molten slag. Trees beyond that initial area had been torn from the ground and cast away or flattened. Not a single one stood erect.

Rin slowly began moving the disk forward which brought their attention to the city. The half of Fuyuki that was closest to the blast was unrecognizable. Few buildings were still standing and fires were abundant and running wild. No skyscraper had survived the shock wave on that side of the city. Emergency vehicles were zooming through the rubbled streets trying to give aid to any survivors they could find and prevent any further damage. Shirou looked to Rin, horrified by the amount of damage, and asked, "Were the other ones as bad as this one?"

"No..." Rin answered, shaking her head, "The largest explosion before this one destroyed a small fishing village in the Amazon. It was a couple football fields of destruction. This...this is on an entirely different level."

The rest of the short trip went on in silence; there was no conversation any of them could think of that would be appropriate in lieu of the present situation. The approach of the center of the crater saw a rapid rise in temperature. The ground was charred and not completely solid and plumes of searing hot smoke billowed into the air around them. Between the breaks in the smoke and fire, something shimmered and caught Rin's attention. She tried to get a better look, but the environment prevented her from doing so. Turning to Saber, Rin said, "I think I see something down there. Saber, is there anything you can do about the heat?"

Saber nodded and held out her arm. A bright light flashed briefly. When it subsided, a swirling mass of wind was being held firmly in her hand like a sword. Without hesitating, Saber lept into the air. She flipped mid-air to better orient herself for a landing. Saber touched down on an intact piece of rubble. Raising the wind above her head. She gathered a great amount of magical energy and the winds became more turbulent. Then Saber made her move. The knight brought her arms down swiftly and a massive whirlwind erupted forward. The red hot rock near instantly turned black and most of the smoke was blown away.

Rin took this opportunity to land the disk. The moment it touched ground, Rin and Shirou disembarked. The stone was warm beneath their feet, but it was far from inconvenient. Looking out into the center it was obvious that Rin had been right. Floating about four feet off the ground was a black sphere; it looked to be roughly twenty feet in diameter. Swirling streams of what looked like gray mist seemed to flow along the surface, but none was emitted into the air.

Shirou found that the longer he stared at it, the more familiar it started to become. Something about the orb kept his attention focused on it; a subconscious tugging pulled at the back of his mind. Almost entranced, the young man began inching toward it. He made it about five feet before Saber's voice jostled him from his daze, "Shirou, wait. I'm sensing a powerful magical presence within that sphere. We should prepare ourselves in case it's-"

The orb cracked, making Saber end her sentence prematurely. Shirou quickly moved back to Rin and Saber and positioned himself defensively in front of them. Magical energy pooled inside him and a green, grid-like shape materialized near his hands. Shirou gripped the pattern and it took solid form. One in each hand, Shirou was now wielding two short swords. Both were identical save for their coloration; the left one had a fat, curved blade that was white, the right was black in hue and had a hexagonal pattern etched into it. Where the blade connected to the handle there was a yin-yang symbol embedded in. The swords were around three feet long.

"You've really improved," Rin commented, "When I left that magic of yours took a lot out of you. Now it's barely drawing on your magic circuits."

Shiro saw Saber express her agreement with Rin's observation with a nod. Before he could reply the ball cracked again. And then again and again and again. With barely any warning, the entire sphere exploded into a cloud of dust. Shirou had to avert his eyes to keep from being blinded. A man's voice quickly followed the dust cloud, "So you're copying my blades, eh Shirou?"

All three knew the voice immediately. As the dust settled, a tall man became visible. Piercing black eyes set into a bronze colored face bore down at them. A small smile was etched into his countenance and white hair covered his head. A red overcoat covered a skin tight piece of body armor. The malleable armor was tucked into his trousers and metal plated boots covered his feet. Rin was the first to speak, "Archer?!"

Shirou was pretty sure from the shock in her voice that Rin was more surprised to see Archer, her previous Servant in the last Holy Grail War, than he was to see Saber when she reappeared. Archer nodded and looked around. As he did so he said, "Yeah, it's me. And that must have been some explosion. It was much greater than I had expected."

Shirou frowned, "Does that mean you caused all this?"

Archer chuckled, apparently amused by Shirou's accusation, "I'm flattered that you think I could produce such carnage with my power, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to have to disappoint you. I was summoned just seconds before whatever exploded blew up. My attempt to avoid the burst was so hasty I didn't even summon my reality marble correctly. The damn thing manifested physically and I got to feel most of the blast..."

Archer grumbled incoherently, obviously somewhat embarrassed, and Shirou went to say something, but Rin cut him off, "Archer, you said someone summoned you. Who performed the ritual?"

"No idea," Archer shrugged, "Wasn't exactly in a position to investigate. I suspect it doesn't matter though as not even an experienced magus could have survived this explosion."

Rin furrowed her brow, pondering what was going on. Two Servants had been summoned within minutes of each other; that was not a coincidence. There might be a connection with the ley lines, but no other Servants had been found at or near any other sites. This situation seemed to be unique. As her thoughts deepened, she failed to see a small object floating down from the sky. Shirou on the other hand did not and shouted, "Rin! Above you!"

Rin's head snapped up and she prepared to cast a spell, but her body relaxed as she recognized what it was. She held out her hand and the object drifted into her palm. Turning to Shirou she explained, "This is a Global Messaging Familiar. The Mage's Association uses these to communicate with members in the field. I was expecting one, but didn't think they send one so fast. Hold on. I'll play the recording."

The familiar was shaped like an eyeball and had two bat-like wings for flight. Rin tapped the iris and there was a brief pause before a man's voice stated, "Ms. Tohsaka, return to London immediately. Bring Shirou Emiya and whatever Servants you two now have in your possession. Do not delay."

Shirou blinked at Rin, confused, "Who was that? How does he know about me and Saber and Archer?"

"That was my teacher, Lord El-Melloi II. As for how he knew about you and the others, I don't know, but we'll find out when we get to London. My jet is stationed in the next town over. We can use that to get back to England."

"What? We can't leave yet! Fuyuki is in ruins! We need to help!"

Rin sighed, frowning, "I want to help too, Shirou, that's my home city that's on fire too, you know. But there's nothing significant we can add to the emergency crews and their efforts. We need to figure out why our Servants were summoned and why the ley lines are loosing magic and exploding. I have a feeling those answers are awaiting us in London. Besides, the Mage's Association will be sending relief aid like they have with every other place that's needed it because of these explosions. Fuyuki will be fine without us."

Shirou grit his teeth. He knew she was right, but he still felt terrible for not at least trying to help. A hand fell on his shoulder. Shirou turned to see Saber looking at him reassuringly. She gently squeezed his shoulder and said, "It will be alright Shirou. Rin's correct. We need to work to prevent this from happening again rather than wasting our time only to have another ley line go off and hurt or kill more people."

Shirou exhaled sharply, obviously still conflicted, but nodded, "Fine...then let's hurry to London. Every second counts."

 **Day 1: 11:19 PM, London, England - Mage's Association: The Clocktower**  
Waver Velvet walked through the narrow hallways of the institution absent mindedly. A quick glance at his watch told him he still had ten minutes before his class began. He debated sneaking a cigarette, but decided against it because if he was going to kill his lungs, he'd rather enjoy it than rush through the process. Someone moved into his vision and caught his attention.

"Lord El-Melloi, sir?"

He was a younger man, a couple years junior to Waver. He was dressed in the generic student uniform which consisted of a black blazer, black slacks, and a white undershirt. Waver recognized him right off; it was Lawrence Goldtrim, one of his apprentices. The senior took a deep breath trying not to bite the young man's head off.

Years ago, Waver had taken it upon himself to gather and log the collective works and lore of Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi following the man's demise in the Fourth Holy Grail War (the Grail War preceding the most recent). His efforts saved the integrity of the El-Melloi household and the heir at the time, Rieves El-Melloi Archisorte, relinquished the heirship to Waver and granted him the title of Lord El-Melloi II. Most people knew and addressed him by the name now-a-days. Unfortunately they more often than not left off the "II" when speaking with him. While seemingly a minor mistake, Waver hated the absence of the moniker. He could never explain why beyond the fact that it simply grated in his ears without it. He pointed out the error to his student, "The second."

"Sir?" Lawrence inquired, not immediately comprehending what Waver was saying.

"It is Lord El-Melloi II. If you are going to call me by that name I will ask that you call me it in its entirety lest I impart some less than savorable punishment."

Lawrence understood that. He snapped to attention, an act that drew an exasperated sigh from Waver, and half shouted, "A thousand apologies m'lord! It won't happen again!"

Waver pinched the bridge of his nose and said, "Fine. Now what do you want?"

"Want?" Lawrence seemed to have momentarily lost his train of thought. He quickly recovered it, however, and elaborated, "Oh! I have a message from the Council. They need to speak with you regarding something important. I wasn't given specifics."

Waver rolled his eyes, clearly dissatisfied, "I have a class starting in less than five minutes. Tell them they can wait until it's over."

As he turned to walk away, Lawrence quickly stammered, "But sir! They were very insistent you come now."

Waver didn't break stride as he responded, "Don't care. Classes come first. And I expect to see you at my five o'clock class. Don't be late."

Finding the door to his lecture just a little ways down the hall, Waver walked into the room leaving a very distressed Lawrence fumbling about. Not looking at his class he bee lined for his podium on the raised stage in the front and said, "Notebooks out, distractions away, sit up straight."

He heard a great deal of shuffling and looked up in time to see his students finalizing their orders. The lecture hall was fairly large; a semicircle of multiple rows of desks took up a majority of the space and every chair was filled bringing the the room's occupancy to 101 (Waver included). Waver turned to the large chalkboard behind him and began drawing a massive and intricate circle. Above it he wrote: "To Summon A Familiar: The Proper Runes, The Proper Circle, The Proper Form." Waver repositioned himself to face the class and promptly began his lesson.

For the next forty five minutes Waver, in detail, explained the value of utilizing the correct symbols in conjunction with the right summoning pattern to achieve the desired result. He moved around the stage in between drawing a number of different summoning circle patterns and corresponding rune combinations. Throughout the course, Waver emphasized caution in mixing and matching summoning runes haphazardly. As he began to wind down his lecture he moved back to his podium, "In conclusion, I'd like to stress the importance of-"

Someone interrupted him mid sentence by calling out, "Um...sir...?"

A vein popped on Waver's forehead. He hated being cut off. He opened his mouth to berate the student, but opted to take a deep breath and hold back on chewing him out. As he exhaled, Waver said through gritted teeth, "Yes?"

"Is that circle supposed to be glowing like that sir?"

Waver raised and eyebrow and noticed most of the class was now looking wide eyed past him. He turned on a dime and saw that the first summoning circle he'd drawn was glowing brightly. Somehow magical energy was getting funneled into it. As it flared red, Waver realized it was reaching a critical point. He turn to his students and yelled, "Everyone down!"

The class immediately ducked behind their desks and Waver threw his hand in a sweeping motion over the front of the classroom. A crystalline paneled barrier quickly took form reaching from the ceiling to the floor. Using his other hand, Waver made a similar barrier in a spherical shape around the circle. It was just in time. The circle exploded mere seconds after he formed both barriers and Waver felt a tremendous force slam into the shield. The screen lasted for a moment, but the blast was significantly more powerful than anything Waver could manage on such short notice. The protective sphere shattered and the ensuing force threw Waver backwards and he was smashed into the barrier protecting the students; fortunately that shield held.

The explosion washed over the paneled wall, but failed to reach the class. As it died down, Waver managed to look up to what was left of the stage. A figure moved through the smoke toward him. As the teacher's blurred vision refocused, Waver's eyes widened. A gigantic man standing over two meters in height was soon upon him. He had a large musculature and sternly chiseled features with eyes that gave off a dazzling glow. Burning red hair and a beard covered his head. He was dressed in bronze armor with cuffs and greaves with fringes that left his arms and thighs unprotected. In addition he wore a thick mantle, with fringes like his cuffs, dyed in a similar red to his hair. The man bent down next to him and said in a gruff voice, "Sorry Waver. It would seem that the circle used to summon me was inadequate. Are you alright?"

Waver sat up and winced as a slight pain ran up his spine; it was nothing serious as far as he could tell. Looking up at the man, Waver managed, "But...how?"

The man stood erect and bellowed proudly, "I am Iskander, King of Conquerors! If I am summoned, I will answer the call!"

Waver let out an exasperated sigh. The man before him was the Rider-class Servant Alexander the Great, known also as Iskander. During the Fourth Holy Grail War the Servant had been partnered with none other than Waver himself. During the war the two had formed a very close bond and Rider had taught Waver a great deal about one's attitude toward life in addition to numerous other other lessons. Most of the things Rider imparted on Waver were translated into the teacher's lessons in the classroom.

Waver shook his head, "No you dolt. I mean how were you summoned? I didn't initiate it. I couldn't even if I wanted to. Only the Holy-"

Rider cut him off, his slightly cheerful demeanor quickly switching to one much more serious, "Exactly. Waver Velvet I come with an important message. An unspeakable evil is brewing in the shadows. A group of Servants is being called forth to combat this presence and we have been summoned by what I can only assume are the fragments of the Greater Grail. There is more, but I can only reveal the rest when the other masters and Servants are present. Time is of the essence, we must be swift!"

Waver had heard plenty. He nodded and stood to his feet. He turned to his awestruck class and said succinctly, "Class dismissed."


	3. Chapter 3

**Day 1: 7:30 AM: Undisclosed Location, Germany - Einzbern Family Castle**  
Knock! Knock! Knock!

Something shifted under a vast sea of blankets.

 _Knock! Knock! Knock!_

The rapping at the door intensified and yielded the desired effect. A small head popped up from beneath the expanse of covers and gave a large yawn. A thin, pale arm soon followed and attempted to rub the sleep from two tired eyes. It helped a little and the eyes opened to reveal a set of blood red irises. They lazily looked around the room. It was massive, easily a hundred feet in length and very well furnished. Numerous desks and chairs and dressers were positioned snuggly along the walls. Central amongst the other furniture was the bed. An oversized mattress rested in the middle of a four post bed frame. Dark red sheets lay strewn in heaps on top of it and a young girl's head was resting on a horde of black pillows.

The knocking came again, this time accompanied by a shrill voice, "Mistress Illyasviel? Mistress Illyasviel! Are you awake, madam? It is time to rise and prepare for your coronation. We only have two hours!"

Illyasviel von Einzbern released another yawn and sat up. A tangled mop of snow white hair fell about her head. Half heartedly she called out, "I'm awake. Give me a moment to orient myself. I will be out shortly."

"Yes ma'am!" the voice shouted back, "But I again stress that you hurry your orientation post haste!"

Illya gave a low groan and flopped backwards into the comfort of her pillows. She'd been back home for just about a week, but the strictness of procedure here was vastly different to the more lenient habits she'd fallen into while living by herself in Japan with her brother. Her grandfather, Jubstacheit von Einzbern, who had been the head of the house for almost two centuries, had recently and suddenly passed away. Illya had been recalled from her life in Japan to undertake the mantle as heiress as no other candidates existed. She didn't mind being home, rather she missed the freedoms she had back in Fuyuki as well as her adoptive brother, Shirou Emiya. With the thoughts of Fuyuki and Shirou at the forefront of her mind now, she forced herself out of bed so that she could potentially hurry this coronation process along and return to her other home as quickly as possible.

Her feet touching the ground, Illya shivered. A quick look out the window showed that a snowstorm had picked up the previous evening and was still somewhat raining down white flakes. While the air in the room was warm thanks to the heating systems in the castle, the stone ground was persistent in its attempt to match the outdoor temperature. Illya quickly moved onto the long red carpet and shuffled to the door. She opened it and found the head maid, Madam Eunice Holtbruner waiting just outside it. She was an older woman, in her early seventies, and had assisted in Illya's upbringing since she (Illya) was a child; she was essentially a second mother to Illya. Long gray hair was tied up in an ornate bun and capped with a wool bun cover. She was dressed in an eccentric blue gown with a white apron covering the front and wore a pair of black flats. A stern look was set on her face as she hurried Illya out of the room, "Come on, come on Madam! We have so much to do!"

Illya didn't bother putting up any resistance as she was too tired to care. And thus began the multi hour task of preparing for the coronation ceremony. Following a very thorough shower, Illyia was dressed in the ceremonial robes and gowns. After that she went through a strenuous ordeal as multiple groomers fashioned her mid-back length white hair by tugging, looping, and braiding it into a glamorous shape. Makeup and perfumes were then applied and she was just about ready. By this time it was almost nine thirty. She was rushed to the ceremony hall in the attached monastery next to the castle.

Illya found herself positioned in front of the large double doors that lead into the room, but her attendants were waiting for their cue before letting her go in. The pause finally gave the teenage girl a moment to take in what was finally happening. She'd been putting off facing the fact that she was about to be crowned head of the Einzbern Family because she knew it was nothing more than a formality. Because of her age she wasn't going to actually be running anything. Orders from her grandfather dictated that until she came of age, Illya's normal duties were going to be carried out by a number of trusted members from her extended family. She still had three years before those duties were going to fall to her, but the sense of anxiety was building nonetheless. She had just become accustomed to a great deal of freedom and in a relatively short amount of time it was going to be gone. Illya let out a sigh and did her best to refocus on getting back to Shirou and Fuyuki to keep her mood level. As she did so, she heard an organ start to play. It was time.

The doors were opened and Illya began her walk to the stage at the front. Glancing around the room she saw only a handful of people had shown up. Most were members of the Einzbern family she'd met only briefly during her solitary childhood. The others were trusted associates and other familial partners. The room itself hadn't been altered at all. The lighting was natural and came from the large open windows on the far end of the chapel. Columns boxed in the pews and separated them from the side walkways. There were fifteen rows of the large seats and a majority of the attendees were seated at the front. The central aisle had a long red carpet leading up to a slightly raised stage where an older man was standing obviously waiting for Illya to finish her procession. He was dressed in almost identical garments to her. A semi-ornate white robe covered his body and a white and gold stole rested around his neck. On his head was a tall, thin hat similarly colored to the rest of his clothing. He had no facial hair and wore a pair of black, circular spectacles. Illya didn't know him personally, but recognized him as the family's holy man. She was fairly sure his name was Aldrich.

The walk to the stage was fairly short as Illya's pace was increased compared to what is probably should have been. Coming to a stop next to Aldrich, Illya gave him a bow and then turned to face the assembly. She said not a word as the holy man began the ceremony. He pulled out a small book and began reciting from it in German. Illya's composed face betrayed her impatience. The priest was speaking non-stop for nearly ten minutes straight. A quick survey of the audience showed that none of them were expressing any signs of boredom, at least not openly. The man's shift to english queued Illya that the ceremony was almost complete and he was almost done talking. Illya turned to face him on his command and remained silent as he said, "Illyasviel von Einzbern, with the passing of your grandfather, Jubstacheit von Einzbern, you will now inherit the title, as well as all subsequent powers associated with said title, of the Head of the Einzbern Family. Do you accept this title and swear to do nothing but bring honor to this house and its members?"

"I do."

Illya spoke those words without a trace of the resentment she felt for them. Aldrich nodded and turned to face the group of onlookers, "If there is anyone present that feels these proceedings should not be followed through with, please speak now. If not, I will-"

Something flew from the shadows faster than Illya could follow. It reached the stage and Illya just barely managed to see it slice through Aldrich's neck. Whatever the object was was connected to a chain that swiftly pulled it back behind one of the pillars to Illya's left. Aldrich managed a cough before his head slipped off his body and tumbled down the stairs into the center aisle. There were numerous gasps and a shriek or two as every stood up in shock. A man moved out from behind the column and shouted, "I'm going to have to voice my disagreement with this party."

He was tall, over six feet, and had chiseled facial features. Black hair adorned his head and his eyes were dark green. He was dressed in a pinstripe dress shirt that had its sleeves rolled up and a pair of khaki slacks. He had a cigarette in his mouth and Illya noted the exceptionally strong German accent even compared to most natives of the country. One of the partners to the family closest to the man moved forward and hissed, "Just who do you think you are?! How dare you interrupt this ceremony and kill-"

The man snapped his finger and the object appeared again, this time from the other side of the room. Again, its movement was too fast for Illya to catch, but it followed the same kind of path it did the first time and the partner was quickly beheaded. The man let out a poof of smoke from his mouth and said, "How about everyone sits down. Now."

Illya felt the pressure rather than saw it, but something formed over the group assembled and they were crushed into their chairs. They struggled against it, but were unable to sit or stand up. Illya suspected some sort of intricate bounded field was involved. She frowned and finally spoke, "Who are you? I was just about to finish my coronation before you rudely interrupted it."

The man turned his attention to her and said, "Ah. Ms. von Einzbern. You're just the lady we were looking for."

"We?"

"Oh apologies. I forget that he likes to remain hidden," he snapped his fingers and said, "Show yourself."

The air next to one of the pillars wavered and shifted apart revealing a similarly tall man with a head of white hair. He was wearing a long jacket that fishtailed in the back and stopped at his waist in the front. On his legs he wore a pair of thick, white tights and thin, uncomfortable looking shoes covered his feet. In his hand was a long shaft. At the top there was what looked like a long piece of metal with a wickedly sharp edge on it. The man with the cigarette gave a small smile and said, "Well I suppose I should introduce us. My name is Klein. And my friend here, well...you can call him...Lancer."

Illya's composed demeanor shattered. A look of shock and worry engraved itself on her face. Lancer? A Servant? Her brother had destroyed the Holy Grail, the only thing capable of summoning servants, close to three years ago. This was impossible. She shook her head, trying to think clearly. The how didn't matter right now. If what he said was true and that was indeed a Servant, she was hilariously outclassed. She could put up a fight briefly, but there was no way she could win in an kind of direct confrontation. Not to mention whoever this Klein was was obviously an accomplished mage himself. To be able to physically impair most of the major players in the Einzbern family was beyond impressive. She grit her teeth in frustration and began slowly backing up.

"What do you want?" Illya snapped.

Klein raised an eyebrow, "Isn't that obvious? You."

Illya saw Klein nod and then saw his Servant begin swinging his staff around his head. She gauged when he was going to throw it out and dodged to the side accordingly. Her dive was perfect; any normal weapon would have missed her by a mile. Unfortunately she was being attacked by something far beyond a normal weapon wielded by a being light years beyond a normal human. The blade rocketed out from the top of the staff and grazed Illya's cheek. She gasped at the pain as she tucked into a roll and immediately dodged behind the thick stone table nearby. Lancer refocused his attack and sent another strike toward her. Illya was sent sprawling away as the table exploded when hit by the impact. She looked back and saw the Servant moving into a better position to attack her. The girl cursed and made a move to put one of the stone pillars between her and the Servant.

She heard Lancer's attack hit the column, but it fortunately held out...barely. Illya took a deep breath to calm herself and began chanting. As she neared the end of the chant, she rolled out from her cover and threw her arms out. Thin glowing strings flowed from her fingertips and quickly began fusing together to form a cohesive shape. The form it took was that of a large bird. It spread out its wing and released a screech. Illya grinned. This was her most powerful familiar. It wasn't going to be enough to stop the Servant, not by a long shot, but it should give her enough time to-

The familiar exploded. Illya's face contorted into a look of horror. Lancer's weapon returned to its owner and the Servant began moving toward her. She heard Klein let out a groan and call out, "Lancer stop playing around. Hurry up and bag her. We don't need her alive if you can't help it, but we do need all of her. Make sure you get her head if you decide to kill her."

The Servant nodded, not speaking, and began twirling his staff around his head. Illya instinctively backed away and felt the wall come up behind her. She clenched her teeth together, anger and fear welling inside her. There was nothing she could do. There was no defense she could muster that would allow her to escape, no offense she could bring to bear that would even inconvenience the Servant, no speed she could utilize that would allow her to dodge the coming attack. Frustration and refusal to accept the coming events boiled over and she shut her eyes tight. She heard the chain on the staff start to extend from the shaft and in response she shouted the name of the one person who flashed in the forefront of her mind, "SHIROU!"

An explosion rocked the entire building and Illya heard something fall down in front of her. The sound of metal clanging to the ground made her slowly open her eyes. In front of her stood a figure. Massive in size, easily twice the size of a normal human, he had dark gray skin and a mane of flowing black hair. He wore only a tattered loincloth around his waist and wielded a massive club of what looked like concrete. He snorted and turn his head to look at Illya. After a moment he spoke, his voice deep and gruff, "Illya...safe?"

Illya looked at him in awe, not fully believing what was in front of her. She cocked her head to the side and timidly asked, "Berserker?"

The figure nodded. As a previous Master in the last Holy Grail war, Illya knew very well that what she was seeing should be impossible. With the Holy Grail destroyed no Servants should be able to exist. Yet here stood her old Servant and protector. His presence also did away with any suspicion she had about the other Servant's credibility. Somehow Servants were being summoned and she was once again in the middle of some sort of conflict involving them. A thought coming to mind, she asked Berserker, "Are you here to protect me?"

Berserker nodded again. Illya smiled and directed her attention to Klein who was obviously contemplating his next course of action more carefully. Locking eyes with the man, Illya said sweetly, "Berserker...kill them."

Berserker let out an earth rattling roar and was on the other Servant in a fraction of a second. Despite his immense size, his speed was ludicrous. Lancer barely reacted in time and, though he blocked the strike, was sent flying into a pillar which shattered on impact. Berserker gave him no quarter and continued with his assault. Another direct hit sent the enemy Servant flying through the wall and off the edge of the cliff it was positioned on. Lancer's master cursed under his breath and said, "Damn. I was not expecting resistance from another Servant."

He looked at Illya, who was beaming, and said, "Well it seems I have overstayed my welcome. I'll be leaving now."

"I don't think so," Illya chimed, "Berserker?"

Berserker snorted again and his head snapped to Klein. He was on the man in seconds, but he stopped short as black, flame-like wisps encompassed Klein's figure. Klein chuckled and said, "Perhaps next time Ms. von Einzbern. Tchuss."

He gave a short salute before the flames completely distorted his figure. As they died down, Klein was nowhere to be seen. Illya could no longer sense the other mage, but his presence was obviously gone as the magic affecting the guests had receded. Illya let out a breath of relief that the danger had passed. Now she could focus on trying to figure out what was going on. Ignoring the concerned voices of everyone else, Illya made her way toward the door and said, "Berserker, follow me. We have a lot to do."


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note:

Just a real fast heads up. This is an introduction to one of two OC protagonists that are going to be prevalent in this story. Having an OC caught some people off guard a little, so I figured I'd post this when I updated the fic.

MOVING ON!

 **Day 0: 2:17 PM - Seattle, Washington: City Overpass**  
Cold wind swept through the streets of Seattle sloshing around the slush that was falling heavily from the sky. Under an overpass, behind a large concrete support, burned a small, but persistent fire. Housed in an old oil drum, the fire did its best to keep its audience warm. Huddling around the hard working fire were two figures. The first wore a thick, tattered jacket with equally ratty gloves covering her hands. A dark wool cap rested snuggly on her head and black hair flowed from beneath it stopping just past her shoulders. A cold, rosy nose sat between two vibrant cobalt eyes. A row of light freckles were etched along the center of her pale face. The second figure was covered in matted white fur. A nearly hairless tail was curled tightly around a small body trying to conserve as much heat as possible. The small terrier gave a visible shiver, a sentiment that was shared by the teenage girl.

"Bit chilly out isn't Fergy?"

Fergus turned his head to look at her and had an expression that seemed to indicate a distinct lack of amusement. An audible snort was the only response the dog gave. Eralyn Shaw gave a chuckle, "Sorry. Just trying to keep the mood light."

Fergus gave another huff and flopped into the slush splashing Eralyn. The teen scowled and said blandly, "Thanks a lot..."

Eralyn breathed into her hands and then held them out to the fire. Glancing at the dog she asked, "So any idea what to do for lunch?"

The mention of food made the terrier's ears twitch. He dragged his head through the half melted snow and looked at his master waiting for her to come up with something. Eralyn thought for a little bit before suggesting, "Dumpster diving behind Fong's?"

In response, the dog moved his paw up to his face covering it. The display of disapproval was easy to decipher. Eralyn furrowed her brow, going back into thought, "Um...Mike might be working at Scardoni's. If we look extra pitiful we might be able to mooch a slice of pizza."

That drew a positive reaction from Fergus. He picked his head up off the ground and began energetically wagging his tail. Eralyn gave a half laugh and said, "Fine. Make sure you've got your pout ready to go. You know how much of a sucker for poor looking dogs Mike is. Come one."

Eralyn waved her hand to encourage Fergus to follow and he complied without hesitation. The trek through the snow took about twenty pain stakingly cold minutes, but their destination was finally in sight. The roads were empty, everyone warm and snug inside their homes. Most of the shops were closed due to the harshness of the snowstorm, but a small, single story building wedged between two massive office builds still had its lights on. A thick plume of steam billowed out of a smokestack at the back of the building indicating that food was cooking. Eralyn trudged over to the corner alley and welcomed the shield the restaurant provided from the storm. Seeing the side door, she made her way to the nearby dumpster and lay in wait behind it.

It took almost another half hour before the door finally opened. A middle aged man with a portly figure walked into the alley with two full trash bags. He was wearing a stained sweatshirt over top of a grey tee and apron. His faded blue jeans were tucked into a pair of loosely tied boots. He scowled at the burst of cold, the pair of thick lips behind his choppy goatee contorting into a heavy grimace. He hurried to the dumpster and quickly tossed his load into it. Eralyn took this opportunity to strike. She moved out from behind the other side of the dumpster and announced herself, "Hey Mike."

Mike gasped and jumped. He lost his footing in the frozen rain on the ground, but caught himself on the dumpster. His already sour demeanor quickly worsened and he bellowed, "Goddamit Ella! Don't freaking sneak up on me like that!"

Eralyn couldn't help but let out a laugh, "Sorry Mike. Couldn't resist."

The older man righted himself and straightened out his clothing. He let out an irritated sigh, but did his best to reign in any anger he was feeling. Looking her over he said, "I take it you wanted me to spot you some food."

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble," Eralyn grinned at him.

"Well prepare to be disappointed. Sardoni's caught on and doesn't want me feeding any stray kids. He'll have my hide if he finds out I'm giving anymore of his food away."

Eralyn's grin devolved into a frown. Deciding to play the sympathy card she whipped out her best puppy dog pout and said gingerly, "Would you seriously let a young, growing girl without a home starve in the streets?"

Mike narrowed his eyes, clearly unaffected, "Yes."

The frown returned and Eralyn murmured, "Jackass..."

Mike was about to retort when a small whimper made itself audible. Eralyn and Mike both looked down to see a sopping wet Fergus sitting in the snow nearby, shivering. His eyes were huge black globes of pure pity and the whimpering became louder. Mike looked away and crossed his arms over his chest, "Not going to work."

Fergus took the man's resistance as a sign to step things up. He let out a sickly cough and fell to the ground, legs out spread, and let out a low whine. Mike kept his head turned, but Eralyn saw his eyes darting back and for between the dumpster and Fergus. He did this a few times before eventually dropping his arms to his side and grumbling, "Goddamn dog...fine. Wait here. I'll see what I can scrap together."

As Mike made his way to the door, Fergus began wagging his tail excitedly. Eralyn grinned at the dog and said, "Good boy."

There was a little bit of a wait between Mike heading back inside to when he returned. As the door opened the smell of cheese and herbs and grease wafted into Eralyn's nose. She took in a deep breath, savoring the smell, before quickly moving up to Mike. He held three plates on one arm and used the other to fend off Eralyn. The snowing had died down so there wasn't too much falling from the sky. This allowed Mike to clear off some nearby crates to use as makeshift chairs. He sat down and handed Eralyn a plate with a large slice of pizza covered in thick, gooey cheese, an assortment of vegetables, and an array of meats. He dropped another plate on the ground and it was immediately attacked by Fergus. The last plate being for him, he gingerly picked up the slice and started eating. Eralyn did the same. As she ravenously dug into it, Mike, after swallowing the food in his mouth,said, "So you do know that there are shelters you could spend the night in, right? You'd have a hot meal and be out of the snow."

Through chewing, Eralyn said, "Too many eyes. Don't want any extra attention."

"On the run or something?"

Eralyn stopped eating and frowned at him, "What's with the sudden interest in me?"

Mike scowled, "Sue me for wondering about the homeless chick I've been feeding for going on three years. Kinda figured since we were at the 'Give each other heart attacks' stage we'd be allowed to ask a couple questions and get to know each other a little better..."

The girl's frown persisted as she scrutinized her company. Letting out a sigh she took another bite and said, "I'm on the run kind of."

"Run away from home? Trying to avoid your parents?"

"I..." Eralyn hesitated and decided to scarf down the rest of her pizza before finishing, "I don't have any parents to avoid..."

She looked at the ground, not wanting to see whatever expression Mike had on his face. Following a short pause Mike asked, "So how old are you, Ella?"

Eralyn glanced up at him and said in a not so confident fashion, "21."

Mike narrowed his eyes and gave her an expression that very obviously showed he knew what she'd said was a flat out lie. Eralyn groaned and leaned back on the cold wall, "Fine...16."

"What in the hell are you doing out on the streets, girl?!"

Eralyn jumped a little at the intensity of Mike's voice.

"What's wrong with that?" she hastily responded.

"You should be in school! You should be warm and not smell like a dead racoon."

"Wow. Thanks," Eralyn interjected blandly.

Mike ignored the comment and kept going, "You shouldn't be scavenging for food in freezing weather and wondering where you're going to find the next cardboard box to sleep in! You do know that there's this little thing called the Foster system, right?"

"Tried it," Eralyn answered, "Didn't like it...don't see why you care though. I'm doing just fine on my own."

"I care because I've got a daughter myself. And I sure as hell wouldn't want her going through what you're going through if there were alternatives. Think it over would ya? If you want I could call-"

The back door opened and someone stepped into the alley. He was average in height and stick thin. He wore a green striped shirt with the collar popped and dark black jeans. He had a head of short, gray hair and looked older than dirt. Mike cursed under his breath as the man hollered, "Mike! What did I tell you last time! Don't be giving out my food to those homeless urchins!"

"Mr. Sardoni-" Mike didn't get any farther than that. Sardoni poked his head inside the door and whistled.

Eralyn heard Mike gasp. He turned to the girl and said, "Hightail it out of here! He just called-"

"Grover! Sic 'em!"

A large, black bulldog came barreling out from behind the door and began barking. Eralyn turned on a dime and started sprinting down the alleyway. Fergus tore past her and left her in the dust.

"Mangy dog!" Eralyn shouted as she hung a right at the end of the alley, "Way to just leave me behind to be kibble!"

Eralyn cursed loudly as she heard Grover closing in on her. She was passing a garage entrance to the office building when a pair of hands grabbed her and yanked her into a door. The door was swiftly closed and Eralyn was pushed against a wall. A hand covered her mouth and she registered a man's voice that said, "Be quiet."

Eralyn squirmed a little, confused as to what was going on. The garage lights were off so she couldn't see who had grabbed her. She heard Grover trample past the door, still barking. After a couple seconds the dog was out of earshot. The person took his hand away from Eralyn's mouth and backed off. The second he did that Eralyn lashed out with her foot and caught the guy in the shin. A loud curse trailed into the air and the guy said, "Damnit it Ella! Why'd you kick me?!"

Able to hear the voice more clearly, she immediately recognized it, "Charlie? Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! I didn't know it was you! I thought you were a creeper or something!"

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw Charlie hunched over, rubbing his leg. He righted himself after a moment. He was tall, almost a head and a half taller than Eralyn who was 5'8". He was wearing a brown jacket and baggy jeans as well as a pair of fingerless gloves. His clothing was in similar condition to Eralyn's. He had thick, sandy blonde hair and dim blue eyes. Charlie took a deep breath, fending off the residual pain, and said, "You're fine. Probably should have announced myself right off. Just didn't want to alert Sardoni's guard dog."

Despite the man's assurance that she didn't need to feel sorry, she still did. Charlie was nineteen and homeless as well. Eralyn had known him for almost three years. She and Charlie had struck up a strong bond a few years back because of the similar circumstances that had led to their homelessness and had been watching each other's backs ever since. Charlie had acted as a sort of mentor to Eralyn teaching her how to stay alive on the streets; everything she knew she'd basically learned from Charlie's teachings. She owed him a lot and trusted him more than anyone else she knew.

Eralyn maintained her concerned frown as she asked, "So why were you even near here?"

"I guess great minds think alike. I was heading over to see if Mike had any food to put towards a good cause."

"That 'good cause' you?" Eralyn asked, half smiling.

Charlie returned the smile with a wide grin, "You know it."

Letting out a sigh he continued, "But I guess I'm out of luck now."

"Sorry..."

Charlie walked over and plopped his hand on her head. He gave it a rub, turning her cap askew, and said, "Stop apologizing. You're fine. I'll make do. Always do."

He gave her another grin to reinforce his sincerity. Eralyn did her best to bury any feelings of guilt that lingered and nodded. She straightened her hat and asked, "So what now?"

"Well as much as I'd like to stay and chat, I've actually got a meeting I need to go to."

Eralyn immediately knew what he was referencing. She gasped and exclaimed, "No way! You got the interview?!"

About three weeks earlier, Charlie had helped out a man with a flat tire. The two got to talking and the man had turned out to be one of the senior partners at a private tech firm in the heart of Seattle. It was a multi-billion dollar company whose employees were paid handsomely. Charlie was a whiz with computers and technology in general and their conversation had made that apparent. The man had taken a shine to Charlie and mentioned that there was an opening in the firm that he worked at. He and Charlie had met a couple times to discuss it, but neither of the kids had actually expected anything to come from it. Apparently they were wrong. Charlie beamed as he said proudly, "Yeah! His name's Gregory; he's really chill. He even got me a suit for the interview with his coworkers. He also told me the interview was just a formality. I'm basically guaranteed the job!"

Eralyn let out a giddy squeal and rushed up to him, hugging him tightly around the neck. She gave a laugh as she said, "That's great! I'm so happy for you!"

As she backed off, she noticed Charlie's grin hadn't faded. He took a deep breath trying to calm himself and said, "Thanks. Well I've got to scoot. I'm meeting Greg at his apartment to clean up before the interview. I'll track you down later to tell you how it went."

"Okay," Eralyn replied. She quickly gave him another hug which was returned enthusiastically.

Charlie made his way to the door and slowly opened it. He peeked his head out and looked around. When he was positive the coast was clear he moved out into the open. Eralyn followed him. The two exchanged goodbyes and then went their separate ways. As Eralyn made her way down the empty street, she couldn't help but continue smiling. This was great. Charlie had finally caught a break after almost seven years of living on the street. He was going to get a home and a job and was going to be happy. Eralyn's smile faded slightly as a thought came to her mind. She was happy for him, but she also realized that this probably meant that he was going to be gone for good. If he got the job, the location was on the other side of the city. She was sure he'd try to visit, but with the distance it was going to be hard. A pang of sadness resonated inside her as the realization hit her. She was very likely about to lose the person she cared about most. Eralyn took a deep breath to try and stem back the tide of emotions she felt coming. She clenched her eyes shut and shook her head to dispel any negative feelings. No matter what happened she was going to be happy for Charlie. And she sure as hell wasn't going to lose her composure in front of him. When she was confident the feelings were under control she exhaled and opened her eyes. She jostled around in her jacket to warm herself up and then set out back to the overpass.

 **Day 0: 10:27 PM - Seattle, Washington: City Overpass**  
Eralyn woke up abruptly. She'd been having some sort of bad dream, but couldn't remember what it was. Her body registered the cold and she shivered. As she did so she heard an annoyed whine next to her. She rolled over in the box and found Fergus curled up between her and the side of the box she was sleeping in. He must have found his way back after she fell asleep. She gently rubbed his back and murmured, "Stupid dog..."

She gave a tired yawn and lifted the thin blanket that acted as a barrier between her and the snow. The snowing had picked up while she was asleep. Almost a foot and a half was layered on the ground. Under the overpass, the conditions were slightly better due to the cover, but it was still pretty deep. She sat up a little and decided to exit her bed. Stepping out into the night she stretched in an attempt to get rid of her stiffness. It worked and she slumped into a relaxed posture. With the snow letting up some, she decided to go for a walk. She wasn't presently tired and figured some walking would tucker her out. Eralyn lifted the flap on her box and asked, "Wanna go for a walk, Fergy?"

Fergus gave a huff voicing his obvious refusal. Eralyn shrugged and let the flap fall back down. Picking an arbitrary direction, she started off on her walk, no specific destination in mind, just randomly walking about. As she walked she found her thoughts drifting toward Charlie. She began thinking about all the trouble they'd gotten into over the years and all the narrow escapes they'd made. One event that remained prominent in her mind was the day they'd first met. Eralyn had been on the run from the Foster officials and been living on the streets for about a year. She'd been making it by by stealing what she could and occasionally getting food from Mike whom she'd met during her first year being homeless.

It was mid-winter and everyone was wearing heavy clothing which made it an ideal environment to pickpocket someone. She'd been scoping out an official looking man and had figured out he kept his wallet in his front left jacket pocket. Just before she could try and thieve him, someone else got to him first. She saw a guy, a little older than her, bump into the man and then quickly apologize. Anyone else would have missed the swift movement, but Eralyn was already intently watching so she saw the guy's hand tuck into the other man's jacket and then smoothly move into his own pocket. Eralyn, not to be denied her ticket to a warm meal, pursued the boy and tried to pickpocket him. It didn't work out the way she planned.

She managed to swipe the wallet, but the guy caught on immediately. Eralyn bolted, trying to lose him in the back alleys, but was eventually cornered. The boy demanded that she give him 'his' wallet, but when Eralyn revealed she knew he'd stolen it, he backed down slightly. After introducing himself as Charlie, he suggested that they split the find. Wary at first, Eralyn eventually conceded and the two went to a cheap fast food joint to get a decent meal. As they were eating they got to talking and found that they were in very similar circumstances. Eralyn's parents had died in a car crash when she was ten and she'd spent two years in horrible homes via the Foster system. She grew tired of the environment and decided to run away when she was twelve. Charlie's parents had been missionaries working in the Sudan. Charlie had been too young to travel and was left with his aunt and uncle. His parents had gotten caught in a crossfire between the natives and been gunned down. Both his aunt and uncle turned to alcohol following the news and were both abusive drunks. Charlie decided to risk life on the street. The similarities made them decide to stick together.

Eralyn chuckled to herself. A one in a million chance encounter gave her the best friend she'd ever had. She sighed as once again the knowledge that he'd likely be leaving for good. Eralyn didn't have a chance to dwell on the thought, however, as a voice called out behind her, "Eralyn! Ella!"

The teenager turned to see Charlie skidding to a stop in front of her. Eralyn almost didn't recognize him. His hair was clean and styled. His face was clean shaven and he was wearing an expensive looking suit and jacket. The only thing familiar he was wearing were his fingerless gloves. After catching his breath he beamed, "I got the job!"

Eralyn covered the short distance between the two of them and hugged him, "Fantastic! Congratulations!"

He hugged her back and stood up tall, lifting her off the ground some. He twirled around in a circle before setting her back down. Still grinning he said, "I start next week. I'll be working with Greg's IT team."

"That's great," laughed Eralyn.

"Yeah! And look at this!"

Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out a slightly crumpled piece of paper. He handed it to her. She looked down and when she registered what it was she gasped and almost dropped it. It was a check written for five thousand dollars. Eralyn looked at Charlie in awe, unable to find words. Charlie laughed and took it back, "I did the same thing when I saw it. Five thousand dollars, Ella! We can pay off a decent sized apartment with that for a couple months and still have money left over!"

Eralyn raised any eyebrow, not sure if she heard him right, "We?"

Even in the dim moonlight, Charlie's face turned noticeably red. He chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head as he said somewhat sheepishly, "Oh yeah. Um...I didn't mean to assume anything, but...if you wanted to...I'd love to have you come with me. Like I said, only if you want to."

Eralyn felt something warm roll down her cheek. She audibly cursed and started wiping away the tears that were falling down her face against her wishes. Charlie looked concerned and started, "I'm sorry if that was weird. Just forget-"

Eralyn punched him in the shoulder and said, trying not to choke on her words, "I'm not crying because I'm sad or weirded out, you idiot. I just wasn't expecting you to say that."

She sniffled to try and combat her dripping nose and continued, "I...I thought you were going to disappear forever what with your job being on the other side of the city. I...I...damnit!"

Eralyn aggressively fought back the tears and finally managed to get them somewhat under control; she couldn't stop sniffling, however. As she redirected her attention back to Charlie he said, "Ella. Why would you ever think that I'd abandon you? We've been through thick and thin for years! There was no way I'd leave you behind! Greg actually got me this advance because I made it clear I needed enough to bring you with me. I wasn't going to take the job otherwise."

"Son of a bitch," Eralyn grumbled. The tears were back.

It was Charlie's turn to initiate the hug. He drew her in and chuckled asking, "So is that a yes?"

Eralyn light slapped his chest and said, through her tears, "Obviously you dolt."

The two stood there for a moment, processing everything that was happening. Eventually Eralyn pulled away and started to say something, but was cut off by Charlie. His voice was leagues more serious and he was looking past her, "Ella. You need to go."

"What?" Eralyn asked, confused.

She turned to face the direction Charlie was looking in and saw four men a short distance away. Two were black, one was white, and one was hispanic. All of them sported a number of tattoos and were dressed in baggy clothing. She didn't know them personally, but she was positive they were a part of the local gang. Eralyn turned back to Charlie and asked, "What's going on?"

"Eralyn, take the check and get around the corner. Greg is waiting a block down. He was going to drive us to his apartment for a congratulatory dinner. Get him. These guys aren't going to try anything if he's around. They aren't that stupid."

Eralyn hesitated, worry quickly welling inside her. Charlie nudged her and she quickly nodded. As she began to back up the taller of the two black men called out, "Yo Charlie! Hold up a second bro. I wanted to congratulate you. I just overheard you say you came into some money. That's great man! Conrad's going to be so grateful that you can pay him back!"

Charlie positioned himself in front of Eralyn and said, "I already paid Conrad back weeks ago, De'Shawn. He's done mooching off of me."

The group stopped a couple feet away. De"Shawn obviously didn't like Charlie's response. His face contorted into one of anger and he growled, "What? You've got a respectable job now and are too good for us?"

"I'm done with the Hustlers. Now get out of here I don't want any trouble."

De'Shawn let out a sarcastic laugh and turned to the others, "Hear that fellas? Charlie here doesn't want any trouble after blatantly disrespecting us. I think he needs a lesson. Maybe we should ruff up his girl there a little. That'll get the message across."

As the others laughed and nodded in agreement, Charlie took a step forward and spoke with a venom Eralyn had never heard from him, "You touch a hair on her head and I'll kill you."

De'Shawn's laughter ceased immediately and he stepped forward to get up in Charlie's face, "What are you gonna do, huh? You're too chicken to do any-"

Charlie's knee rocketed up into De'Shawn's groin. The man let out a strained cough and was knocked back as Charlie sent a punch up into De'Shawn's chin. The impact was so forceful Eralyn saw a tooth break. As he hit the ground Charlie shouted, "Go get Greg! I'll keep them here!"

Eralyn turned and bolted down the road, following his instructions. She heard the sounds of a fight starting, but didn't look back. She rounded the corner and like Charlie said, she found a nice looking black sedan with its engine running. As she moved up to it, the window rolled down and a middle aged man with salt and pepper hair smiled out at her. His smile faded when he saw the worry on Eralyn's face. He opened his door and got out as he said, "You must be Eralyn. Where's Charlie? Is something wrong?"

Eralyn nodded quickly and said, "Charlie's in trouble. Some guys showed up and he's wound up fighting them!"

Greg cursed and said, "Get in."

Eralyn speedily did as he said and the second she was in, he took off. It took only seconds to get down the block. They arrived just in time to see Charlie get hit in the face by De'Shawn. The impact caused Charlie to slip in the slush and he fell to the ground hard. As the headlights moved onto the skirmish, the gang members quickly scattered. Before Greg's car came to a complete stop, Eralyn was already exiting the door. She rushed over to her friend and called out, "Charlie!"

When she didn't get a response, she slid next to him and tried to lift him up by his shoulders. As she did so, she noticed the red colored snow beneath his turned around and hollered, "Greg! Help!"

The older man was already getting out of the car and was quickly next to them. He noticed the blood and frowned. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. After a second or two he said, "My name is Greg Heartfield. I'm at East Marion Street and 26th Avenue. There's a young man with me who's seriously injured. I need an ambulance right away."

There was a short pause before he nodded and said, "Thank you."

He hung up and announced, "An ambulance will be here in a couple minutes."

He looked over Charlie and said, "Come on, Charlie. Hold on."

Eralyn felt the tears already welling at the corners of her eyes. What was probably only five minutes or so felt like hours. The sirens reached the small group first. Loud wails in the distance signaled the emergency vehicle's arrival. A large white and red van tore around the corner and came to a screeching halt next to the group as Greg waved them down. Two medical personnel hastily left the back of the vehicle with a blue stretcher. They moved Greg and Eralyn out of the way and set the stretcher down next to Charlie. After briefly inspecting him and attempting to get a response, the placed a brace around Charlie's neck and gently, but swiftly moved him to the stretcher. They whisked him away to the ambulance with Eralyn and Greg right on their tails. One of the medics turned to them and said, "We only have room for one person."

Before Eralyn could say anything Greg said, "Go with him Eralyn. I'll follow behind with my car."

She nodded and quickly got into the ambulance. When they were settled the medic closest to the front knocked hard on the divide between the back and the cabin. The ambulance shuddered and then took off. Eralyn looked at the medics and asked, "Is he going to be alright?"

"I'm not sure," one said,

They began looking him over again. The one closest to Eralyn took out a small light and leaned over Charlie's body. He opened one of his eyes and flashed light in it. Eralyn saw him frown and say, "Skull could be fractured, pupils aren't dilating. Possible brain injury."

He moved over to a cabinet and started rummaging through it. While he did so, he asked the other medic, "How's his breathing?"

The other medic slipped a stethoscope under Charlie's shirt and listened. Very quickly he stated, "His lungs aren't expanding! I don't think he's getting any air."

"What?! He was breathing shallowly just a second ago! Do you have a heart beat?"

"No. We need to start compressions!"

Eralyn was shifted to the back as the closer medic began frantically pushing on his chest. Eralyn watched helplessly as both medics began attempting to resuscitate Charlie. The process went on for minutes. Eralyn felt the ambulance come to a stop. As it did, the medic toward the front tried to find a heartbeat. The back doors were thrown open and additional doctors and nurses were ready to assist. Unfortunately the medics slowly shook their heads. There was a visible look of disappointment amongst the staff. Greg made his way through the crowd, just arriving, and groaned, "Oh no…"

He looked around and saw Eralyn stepping off the ambulance. He moved over to her and said, "Eralyn….I can't even begin to know what you're feeling…"

Eralyn only half heard him. Her focus was completely shattered. She barely heard him offer to take her to his apartment for the evening at least. She then heard her voice say she just needed some time to sort through things, but she didn't feel like she actually spoke. She vaguely registered him handing her a card and telling her to call him if she ever needed anything. He told her he'd take care of Charlie and come find her later if he didn't hear from her in a day or so. Eralyn just nodded and slowly walked away from the clamoring.

As she turned the corner silence filled her mind. Without direction, Eralyn simply walked. For hours she traversed the sleeping city with no meaning. She had no thoughts in her head, no awareness of her surroundings, felt no cold on her skin or warmth in her body; her being was diminished. Charlie was gone. In mere minutes, her entire life had collapsed. When happiness was within the reach of her hand, it was violently snatched away from her. Finally she came to a stop.

She looked around and found she was standing in the light of a storefront window. There was a clock on the counter of the desk that read "12:24". She'd been walking around for almost two hours. Her eyes then saw her reflection in the dim glass. Upon seeing herself, upon registering the fact that she still existed, the world returned to her. Everything rushed back at once; the pain she'd suppressed, the sense of being completely lost, the terror of being alone. The rush completely overwhelmed her. Tears began to stream from her eyes and she began to sob uncontrollably. Every ounce of strength she had left her body and she couldn't stand. She collapsed to her knees and bent over, crying incessantly. As her sorrow peaked, Eralyn felt something build inside of her. Letting out a wail of despair, whatever swelled within her pulsed outward. The window she was in front of as well as the windows on the parked cars around her shattered from the force that emanated from her body. For a brief moment her face felt intensely hot. The feeling subsided as quickly as it had come. Eralyn looked up to survey what had just happened, her face streaked with tears, and saw the damage. Before she could even try to comprehend what had taken place, a column of light dropped from the sky.

Eralyn had to shield her eyes. She parted her fingers and squinted to try and see clearer. A silhouette was just barely visible in the pillar. The light dimmed before completely vanishing. Eralyn blinked away the combination of residual tears and disorientation from the light. As her vision focused, she saw a tall man standing where the light had been. He had semi-short brown hair and smooth white skin. He was clad in a dark brown aviator jacket lined with tan fur as well as a pair of faded blue jeans. The man made his way over to her, his thick black boots making barely any sound as they trudged through the snow. Eralyn couldn't bring herself to move or react as he crouched down next to her. He smiled at her lightly, an act that immediately and for reasons unknown to Eralyn caused her sorrow to diminish slightly, and asked with a soft, but strength filled voice, "Are you alright, Eralyn?"

Eralyn blinked at him. What was going on? Who was he? How did he know her name? What did he want? Despite the numerous questions she had, she found she could only respond with, "No. I'm...I'm not…"

She began to choke on her words as the sadness began to return. The girl bowed her head, not wanting to see him, not wanting to think about the questions the man brought forth. She didn't want to stop thinking about Charlie. In spite of all the misery his memory wrought within her, Eralyn couldn't let his image slip away. In the midst of her anguish, she felt a hand fall lightly on her head. She picked her head up again and saw the man frowning, concern apparent on his face. Looking unwavering at her he said, "Eralyn, the loss of a loved one is tragic and something that I doubt you will soon move past if ever you do at all. Normally I would stay with you and consol you to the best of my ability either by offering words of solace or acting as an ear for you to vent your sorrow into. However, time is of the essence and not only are you in danger, but so is everyone you care about...including Charlie."

The man's final addition overrode her want to grieve, "What are you talking about? Who are you?"

"Eralyn Shaw you have been chosen by an artifact of immense power to help lend aid to a world in peril. I have been called forth to act as your shield and sword by the same object. Both the mortal realm in which you reside as well as numerous other planes of existence are at risk of being completely wiped out. This includes the realm of the divine, the place where souls go after departing this world."

Eralyn simply looked at him too in awe of the response she was given. Fumbling for some sort of response, she finally managed, "Are you serious?"

The man nodded and moved into the middle of the road. Directing his attention to Eralyn he said, "I understand that the information I gave you is hard to taken in, but I hope this will dissuade any doubts you may have as to the authenticity of my explanation."

He rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath. As he exhaled, two objects began to become apparent behind the man's body. Rapidly, two brilliant white wings unfurled to a their full length (which was by Eralyn's guess to be over fifteen feet as they eclipsed nearby vans in lenght). As Eralyn looked on incredulously, the man said, "My name is Michael Inlustrem, archangel of the Host of the Divine, and we must make our way to London immediately. I know you have a plethora of questions and I will answer all of them on the way. Now-"

He moved back to the sidewalk, his wings still open, and held out his hand, "Will you come with me?"

Eralyn couldn't think properly for a moment. None of this made sense, but he was obviously telling the truth to some capacity; he was not a normal man. If what he said was true, there was no way she could say no. She frowned. Charlie would tell her to do it. She closed her eyes, trying to mentally prepare herself for what she was about to do. Finally she wobbly got to her feet and timidly extended her hand. She placed it slowly in his and he smiled, "Thank you. Now let's go. It will take quite some time to make it to our destination."

He tightened his grip on her hand lightly and effortlessly scooped her up into his arms. He crouched down slightly before rocketing into the air. Eralyn managed to briefly see the city she called home one last time before Michael breached the cloud cover, obscuring her view completely.


	5. Chapter 5

**Day 2: 10:54 - London, England: Mage's Association Vehicle en route to the Clocktower**

Shirou squirmed a little. The back section of the sedan they were in was beyond crowded. Archer, Saber, and Shirou were wedged together with barely any wiggle room. They hit a bump in the road and Archer's head slammed into the roof. He growled and clenched his fists. Directing a glare to the front he angrily asked, "Rin, why on _earth_ am I stuck back here? I barely fit with these two. Wouldn't it have made more sense for you and your dainty figure to sit back here? Then maybe all of us could find some semblance of comfort."

Rin turned in the passenger seat and smiled, "Displeased with the accommodations, Archer? Well, as I explained before, when we reach the security entrance at the Clocktower, an official member of the association will have to be visible with I.D."

"You could do that from back here," Archer grumbled as he shifted rather aggressively knocking Saber into Shirou, "I still don't understand why we couldn't just travel immaterial. You had no issue with it on the plane ride over."

Rolling her eyes and facing forward again, Rin replied, "That was because you and Saber had to focus on replenishing your mana. Well that and the Association doesn't allow for any familiars to enter the compound incorporeal. They like to know who and what enters their facilities."

Archer opened his mouth to give a retort, but received a swift blow to the ribs from Saber's elbow. Looking rather irritated herself, she said, "Perhaps we should cease this line of conversation and accept the situation. It seems to be doing nothing but riling everyone up. Rin, could you please turn on the radio?"

As Archer shot an unwamused look at the knight, Rin nodded, "Of course."

She clicked the radio on and a reporter's voice filled the car, "That's right Jim. But on to World Wide News. Reports are still coming in from the city of Fuyuki, Japan. Last night at approximately 8:50 PM, a subterranean caldera erupted violently roughly 45 miles outside of the city proper. Damage was extensive, but fortunately casualty counts are relatively low. Relief efforts from a variety of different organizations have swiftly moved in to help rebuild to city from the ruins of the second natural disaster to have plagued it in a single decade. The numerous injured are being evac-"

Rin cut it off before the reported got any further. Shirou felt all eyes on him and quickly said dismissively, "I'm fine. The news report said it's not as bad as it looked."

Shirou knew the second he said it that his attempt at playing off his feelings had failed. He just couldn't suppress his worry. Saber confirmed that he hadn't succeeded when she moved her hand over to his. She gave it a firm squeeze. Shirou glanced at her and saw her smiling at him reassuringly. He and Saber hadn't talked barely at all since her return. Between her recovering on the flight over and Shirou resting himself, not even small talk had been had. Despite that, she seemed to effortlessly alleviate some of his tension with only simple gestures. He let out a sigh as he squeezed back and tried to change the topic, "So Tohsaka, how far out are we from the Clocktower?"

Rin rolled with it, "Not far now. It actually should just be a couple of minutes."

True to her estimate, barely five minutes had passed before they were driving alongside a long section of building. In the far corner sat a massive clock tower called Big Ben by the locals. That's where they were heading. The car turned into an archway located in a break in the building and rolled to a stop next to a guard station. The driver rolled down the window and a well built security officer moved up to it. He bent down and looked over the passengers as he asked, "Identification and reason for arrival?"

Rin swiftly retrieved an I.D. badge from her jacket pocket and handed to him as she said, "Rin Tohsaka, Probationary Council Member. I'm returning from field duty per order of Lord El-Melloi II."

The guard paused for a moment, scrutinizing the identification before finally returning it to her and saying, "Have a good day, ma'am."

Rin gave a nod and then returned to facing forward. As they pulled forward Shirou thought he saw Rin smile. Archer apparently saw the same thing as he said, "Don't say a word…"

Rin simply gave a small giggle, remaining silent.

The car angled slightly as they began their descent into an underground garage. The driver found a parking spot and took it. Rin instructed him to stay nearby should they have to leave early for some reason. After that, everyone got out of the car. Archer did so hastily and immediately straightened out his jacket. Shirou and Saber exited much more calmly. As she found her footing, Saber also took a moment to reorient her clothing. On the plane she had made the decision to change into a more casual outfit. She'd decided on the clothing Rin had provided for her when she'd been summoned last. It was simple, a white blouse tucked loosely into a flowing blue skirt. Shirou had never said it outloud, but even in it's simplicity, the outfit did nothing but compliment Saber's appearance.

When everyone was settled, Rin said, "Follow me. It's not too far."

And they were off. It was just the four of them to start, but their solitude didn't last long. As they entered into the main complex they were funneled into a slightly narrow hallway packed with people. Students, teachers, and other faculty busily hurried about trying not to be late to their destination. It became very apparent to Rin and Shirou that Archer and Saber were drawing loads of attention; Saber in part due to her attractive features, Archer more because of his highly imposing figure. This made Rin pick up her pace as she didn't want to have to deal with too many questions from curious peers. After a few minutes of traversing the hallways, Rin finally saw their destination. A small door in the distance was branded "Faculty Meeting Chambers". While she wasn't a true member of the faculty, she knew that her professor would be in there.

As they closed in on the room, the crowd began parting. The group only managed to catch a glimpse of snow white hair before something plowed into Shirou, knocking the wind out of him.

"Brother!"

Shirou sucked in some air sharply, trying to adjust for the new weight on top of him. As he settled his breathing, he focused on what had hit him. He blinked in surprise and said, "Illya?!"

The young Einzbern repositioned herself so she was sitting on his chest and nodded, "Yep!"

Shirou saw an agitated Rin walk over to them. She grabbed Illya and lifted her to her feet. Saber moved to Shirou and helped him up. When he was standing he asked, "Illya, why are you here? Wasn't your coronation yesterday?"

Illya nodded, "Mhmm. But I ran into an old friend and was invited here."

"Old friend?" Shirou inquired.

Illya gave a smile and snapped her fingers. The air behind her and Rin suddenly rippled. It bent and weaved and quickly took the form of a massive man. Easily ten feet tall, his thick black hair was scraping the ceiling. He wore nothing on his extremely well built body save for a long, charcoal loincloth that was a few shades lighter than his skin. The gasps from the hallway denizens alerted Rin and she jumped forward, turning to face the man. A look of horror overtook her face as she registered who it was. Berserker. A Servant so powerful it had taken everything she and Shirou could muster between them to defeat him and even then it was only by a hair that they achieved victory. Light flashed next to Shirou as Saber materialized her combat gear. Both she and Archer moved in between the Masters and the gigantic Servant, weapons ready.

Rin cursed; this was bad. Ignoring all of the gawking students, if a three way battle erupted here between these Servants the results would be catastrophic. She looked at Archer and order, "Archer, stand down."

"Saber, you too," Shirou quickly copied.

Saber hesitated, clearly believing it to be the wrong course of action, but she slowly and reluctantly began lowering the streaming wind in her hands. Archer on the other hand scoffed and growled, "I don't think so. I lost to him once already and I'm not one who likes to repeat history."

"Archer!" Rin snapped.

Despite the obvious irritation in her voice, Archer refused to yield and gripped his dual weapons tighter. Shirou looked at Illya who had a highly amused expression on her face. She noticed Shirou looking at her and turned to face him. He looked between Archer and Berserker and made his worry and fear at the situation very clear on his face. Illya immediately understood and began pouting. Letting out a sigh she said, disheartenedly, "Fine…...Berserker."

Berserker glanced at her and grunted. Her let out a snort of what Shirou assumed was disappointment before relaxing his posture. As the young mage saw Archer slowly do the same, he too relaxed. Big mistake. A figure came charging out of the meeting chambers they were heading to and came to a skidding halt in the middle of the group making Shirou nearly jump out of his skin. He was almost as big as Berserker, but had tan skin and flaming red hair. He let out a hearty laugh and bellowed, outstretching his hands to the air, "Fellow Servants, hear me now! Let us not resort to fighting amongst ourselves! We should pool our talents and unite under the banner of Iskander, King of Conquerors! Together we will be able to achieve anything! In lieu of what lies ahead this seems like it would be the best course of action! What say you all?!"

Silence followed. No one could muster a proper response. Eventually Saber managed to find some words as she said, "Rider….?"

The large man looked at her and a look of joy filled his face, "King of Knights! Saber! You are certainly a welcomed sight! To be in the presence of someone familiar is fantastic! Have you reached an answer to my proposal?"

Shirou saw Saber sigh before she answered politely, "I am afraid my answer will be the same as last time you asked. As a king myself, I cannot resign my mantle and serve another in any sort of inferior capacity."

Rider looked visibly disappointed and said, "That is most unfortunate."

He paused for a brief second before suddenly shouting, "But there are others here! What say you?!"

The speed of his switch from being despondent to being excited gave Shirou whiplash. Shirou saw Archer open his mouth, but the Servant didn't get a chance to say anything as an angry voice exploded from down the hall, "Rider! What did I tell you?! Stay. In. The room! You had one job!"

Students scattered. Shirou had never seen such an exodus. The spectacle of the four odd individuals in the hall was apparently not enough to keep any of them near the source of the voice. Shirou looked down the now clear hall and saw an angry looking man with long, straight black hair storming toward the group. He moved up to Rider and growled, "What are you doing out here?"

"Waver! These fellow Servants were in the midst of a heated dispute and, as a king, it is my duty to defuse situations such as this so obviously I made my way here to-"

"Rider, go back to the room. Now."

Rider frowned, clearly disheartened, and began making his way back down the hall. The man named Waver then turned on the group, "And you! You should know better than making such a spectacle in front of people who aren't involved! Especially you Ms. Tohsaka! I am very disappointed at your inability to keep your Servant leashed in."

Archer forcibly interjected into the conversation, "Hey, it's not her-"

"Silence," Waver snapped, "All of you proceed to the meeting hall now. We don't have anymore time to waste. Go!"

Without allowing anyone else to speak, he turned on a dime and marched toward the room, quickly catching up to and overtaking the sulking Rider. The group didn't waste any time following after him. As the made their way down, Shirou leaned over to Saber, "Saber, do you know those two?"

Saber slowly nodded, "Indeed. The large man is the Rider class Servant Iskander. The other was, I believe, Rider's old master Waver Velvet. They opposed your father and I in the Fourth Holy Grail War."

"Was Waver like this back then too?"

Saber shook her head, "No. My first impression of him back then was that he was timid and lacking in confidence. I surmised his time with Rider taught him a lot when I saw him in the latter half of the war because he was much more confident, but he was nowhere near this stern. This is new to me."

"What about Rider?"

This earned a small grimace from Saber, "Rider is virtually the same. He was always loud."

Something that came to her mind made her chuckled and she followed up with, "But he is a good man and a respectable warrior of great power."

Shirou nodded and turned his attention to Rin who was very obviously lost in thought, "Hey Tohsaka."

She jumped a little and glanced at him, "What is it Shirou?"

"Do you know that Waver guy?"

Taking a deep breath, Rin answered, "Yes. But he goes by Lord El-Melloi II now. I'm studying under him."

"I see."

Shirou had a few more questions, but the were going to have to wait. They arrived at the threshold and made their way inside. Entering in revealed the room to be much larger than one would think. It was a large circular room with dozens of rows of chairs situated in a raised position around a large round table on the floor. Rider and Waver were near the front of the table, clearly arguing. Shirou also noticed two more people in the back of the room; one was a tall man with brown hair who was dressed in jeans and a zipped up aviator jacket and the other was a young girl in tattered clothing. Shirou didn't recognize them. As he and his friends reached the table, Waver ceased conversation with Rider and said, "Well now that we're all here, we need to begin."

He motioned for the other two to come forward. As the did so, he said, "I believe introductions should be made now to avoid any delays later."

Instead of allowing everyone to introduce themselves, he simply pointed to everyone and said their names starting with Illya, "Illyasviel von Einzbern and her Berserker class Servant, Hercules. Shirou Emiya and his Saber class Servant, King Arthur. Rin Tohsaka and her Archer class Servant. And finally Eralyn Shaw and her Lancer class Servant, Michael Inlustrem. Questions?"

Illya spoke up immediately, "Did you say Lancer class Servant?'"

Waver nodded, "Is that a problem?"

"I don't know," Illya frowned, "It's just that just prior to Berserker being summoned, I was attacked by a master and his Servant. That Servant identified as a Lancer class Servant as well. I didn't think that more than one Servant could be summoned up in the same class."

"Normally this is true," Waver started, "But things are different now. It'll be elaborated on in a moment. Any other questions?"

When no one spoke up, he continued, "While I'd prefer to be the one to personally debrief you, I don't have a firm grasp on the requisite knowledge. As such I'll turn you over to Rider. Rider."

The Servant nodded and his normally enthusiastic demeanor shifted into a much more serious one. He looked over the small group and began, "Now I'm sure you're all curious as to why you all have been gathered. Unfortunately it is not under good circumstances. I am not sure about the other Servants, but in addition to the basic knowledge we are all imparted with upon our summoning I was also granted a mass of information in regards to the reason for our summons. It seems the Holy Grail destroyed by Shirou and Saber in the last war has summoned us in attempt to combat some force of evil that threatens the world. I regret that I do not know what that force is, but I do know that it is seeking sources of strong magical energy to gain power."

"The ley lines…." Rin breathed.

Rider nodded, "Exactly. In addition to those ley lines, it also seeks the remaining pieces of the Grail. Despite being destroyed it still holds a magnificent amount of magical power. I feel we must find these pieces of the Grail and safeguard them from the enemy. If any should come against us, we shall crush them!"

He emphasized the last part by flexing his muscles in a show strength. Waver rolled his eyes. While Rider was still flexing, Shirou asked, "So wait. The Grail summoned the Servants to fight off evil? I thought the _Grail_ was evil."

It was Waver's turn to talk. He shook his head, "That's not entirely true. The Fuyuki Grail was not always full of malice. I didn't come into this information until my follow up investigation of the Fifth Holy Grail War, but according to notes left behind by Kirei Kotomine, an entity known as Angra Mainyu was absorbed by the Grail. That is what corrupted it; it turned it into a vessel for all the world's evil. That caused the Grail to answer any wish made upon it in the most malicious way possible as well as allowed it to summon evil aligned heroic spirits. When you and Saber destroyed it at the climax of the last war, Shirou, you not only fragmented it, but purified it of Angra Mainyu as well. It still has the capacity for evil in the wrong hands, but I'm almost positive that it will no longer inherently act in a malevolent fashion on it's own."

Shirou nodded, absorbing the information. When he had finished, he followed up with, "So if we broke it, how is it still functioning?"

"You have to understand," Waver answered, "the Grail is a massively powerful magical construct. Simply breaking its physical form will diminish its capabilities, but powerful magics are required to fully dissolve it."

Shirou hesitated before asking his next question and Rin took the opportunity to ask one of her own, "So if the Grail summoned Servants to protect it, why did one attack Illya?"

"Ah," Waver began, "And there's the disturbing question. Now Rider and I have yet to confirm it, but we theorize that whatever is threatening the world is capable of summoning its own Servants. It would explain the apparent presence of evil aligned heroic spirits and the existence of two Servants of the same class at the same time. So we should take caution as we proceed. It is highly likely the enemy has a team of its own masters and Servants."

Shirou managed to get his next question out before Rin did, "So we're going to have to find the Holy Grail pieces, right? If they're scattered around the world, how exactly are we supposed to locate them?"

Waver began to speak, but Rider cut him off by slamming his hand hard on the round table, "With this marvelous piece of technology!"

"Not if you break it! Be careful," Waver snapped.

"Apologies Waver! My excitement got the better of me!"

"What is that?"

The soft voice reminded Shirou that there was a fifth person present. Not having spoken a word prior and having faded into the background, Eralyn now had all eyes on her. The young girl instinctively responded to the attention by sliding slightly behind her Servant. Waver looked at her a moment before explaining, "This, Ms. Shaw, is a Thaumaturgical Energy Analyzer. It's how we've been tracking the different leylines that are in danger of detonating. It's connected to several natural magic circuits located under this tower which are in turn part of a planet wide subsystem of non-physical magical channels. We can pinpoint sources of heavy magical energy via this and monitor them with great detail. We pair the magical results with satellite footage to give us real time, three dimensional surveillance of any area we wish to scrutinize."

He held his hand out and everyone felt a surge of magic pulse into the table. It immediately lit up. The center came to life with a scaled, topographical model of what looked to be the area in and around the Clock Tower. Below the structure was a pulsating purple ball with hundreds of threads stretching off until the reached the edge of the table. Waver pointed to the ball and said, "That is the leyline this table is connected to."

The mage waved his hand and the scene immediately expanded to form a detailed globe with a plethora of purple spots; a number of black spots were also present.

"These are the locations of every single ley line on the planet. The black spots are ley lines that presently have no magical energy at all and are considered dead. In addition to showing the ley lines, a number of my peers have worked to enhance the senses. Utilizing samples the Association has kept on record of different magical wavelengths, we've been able to adjust the table's parameters so that we can locate the impressive magical energies of Servants as well as the energies of the Holy Grail."

His fingers danced in the air and a cluster of green spots appeared in England and six gold spots appeared in numerous places around the globe. Pointing to the green dots he explained, "These are our Servants. When each Servant was summoned we were able to locate and message all of you all to bring you together. Unfortunately the enemy Servants seem to be shielded. We haven't been able to pinpoint them."

"And the gold spots are Grail fragments, I assume?" chimed Illya.

"Correct," Waver acknowledged, "For some reason we've only found six of the suspected seven pieces."

"Seven?" questioned Rin, "How can you be sure of such a specific number?"

Waver sighed, "As I said, it's only a guess, but we're assuming a fragment exists for each Servant summoned."

"But there are only five summoned Servants," Shirou pointed out.

"Five presently summoned Servants," Waver corrected, "We believe that at least two more Grail allied Servants will be summoned. As a matter of fact, we know the location of the next summoning."

"What?" Rin said, obviously shocked.

Her teacher flicked his fingers and the world began to spin. It stopped when Japan was in the forefront and then quickly zoomed into the area around Osaka.

"Here. Osaka, Japan. A mixture of Grail and Servant energy is pooling within the city which leads us to believe that another Servant is being prepared for summoning."

Shirou and Rin both exclaimed, "Osaka?!"

Waver raised an eyebrow, "Yes. Is that significant?"

"Well yeah!" Shirou said, "That's where a friend of ours is attending university. Sakura Matou."

Rin quickly added, "And based on who is presently here, it's safe to assume that she's going to be the chosen master. The Grail seems to have made it its preference to first chose people from previous Grail wars and Sakura, while not a master in the last war, was the conduit for which the last Rider was summoned. It can't be a coincidence that the next Servant is going to be summoned in the same city Sakura is in. We need to hurry up and get there."

Nodding, Waver said, "So be it. You and Mr. Emiya can go and collect the master and Servant in Osaka. Once you have them, return to the Clock Tower."

Turning to Illya and Eralyn, he followed up with, "Ms. Shaw, Ms. Einzbern, I'm sending you to Burma. There's a monk settlement in the mountains near Myitkyina where a fragment of the Holy Grail is present. I'm tasking you with retrieving it. Like Mr. Emiya and Ms. Tohsaka, return to the Clock Tower when you've completed your task."

Illya nodded, obviously happy about finally getting to do something exciting; Eralyn seemed noticeably less thrilled. Noticing everyone else had their own tasks, Rider looked at Waver and inquired, "And what of us? What shall we do in this new quest of ours?"

"We're heading to France, Rider. A colleague of mine and his associates have quarantined a piece of the Grail. We're going to pick it up."

Rider slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand and said, "Fantastic!"

Waver did his best to restrain an eye roll as he looked at everyone. After a brief pause he said, "If there are no more questions, everyone is dismissed."


	6. Chapter 6

**Day 2: 6:30 PM: Airspace over Astrakhan, Russia en route to Burma**

Illya let out a sigh and shifted her position in her chair. After a couple minutes, she readjusted again. She did it again after a couple more minutes. Finally she stood and kicked her chair. She couldn't get comfortable and it was irritating her greatly. They were four hours into their trip and still had almost six left before they touched down. She glanced at her partner. Eralyn was quietly sitting on the other side of the compartment, keeping to herself. Illya scowled. Maybe that's why she couldn't get comfortable. It was much too quiet for the number of people present. Deciding to rectify this, she marched over to the chair in front of Eralyn and plopped down. Eralyn jumped slightly, obviously lost in thought and not expecting someone to make a racket so close to her. She blinked at Illya and asked, "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah!" Illya started, "It's too quiet. Let's talk!"

"Oh," it was obvious talking was not on Eralyn's list of things to do.

Illya scowled determined to have the silence broken and said, "So what do you want me to call you? Eralyn? Lynn? What?"

"Um…" Eralyn hesitated a moment before saying, "Ella's fine."

"Ella it is then! You can call me Illya. That's what my friends call me."

Eralyn raised an eyebrow, "We're friends?"

"I plan to be by the time I'm done talking with you!" Illya declared, making it very apparent that Eralyn was not getting out of this. Eralyn exhaled and nodded. Taking this as her queue to continue, Illya asked, "Can I ask you a question?"

Eralyn gave an indifferent shrug. Accepting the gesture, Illya said, "Why are you here?"

"Excuse me?"

Illya sat back in her chair and motioned to the air around her, "Why are you here? Preparing to fight in something I think you know very little about. I don't believe I'd be far off in assuming that you're not a mage?"

The other girl shook her head, "Before yesterday I had no idea magic existed."

"So why are you risking your neck now?"

Eralyn gave a small laugh, somewhat amused, and answered, "Well when an archangel descends from the sky and says you've been chosen to fight some sort of grand evil, you can't exactly say no."

This drew a chuckle from Illya, "Fair enough. But do you even know what's going on? That Waver guy at the Clocktower didn't exactly lay things out for you I don't think."

"Michael caught me up on the trip to London. I know the basics about magic and Servants and the Holy Grail. He was pretty thorough," Eralyn explained.

"Well that's good. Now I don't have to go through the trouble of doing it."

There was a pause before Eralyn asked, "So I take it you are a mage?"

"Yeps! And a really good one!" Illya stated proudly.

"I see…"

Illya face contorted into one of scrutinization. She stared at Eralyn long enough to make the teenager uncomfortable. Finally Eralyn half snapped, "What is it?"

"So you're a master? But you don't use magic."

"Is that a problem?"

"A little. Servants draw power from their master's mana. If you don't have any mana or can't use the mana you have, your Servant is at a huge disadvantage in a fight," Illya explained.

Eralyn frowned, "So that's bad for Michael, right?"

"Probably. I mean Servants can do just fine without drawing too much mana from their Masters depending on what their stats are, but even if they can handle themselves, it's not exactly ideal to not have any sort of reserve just in case."

"What can I do to fix that?"

"Well," Illya began, "I'd have to get an idea of what your magic circuits are like first."

"Magic circuits?"

Illya nodded, "Mhmm. They're….think of them like veins in your body specifically for the circulation of magical energy."

"And all mages have them? Including you?" questioned Eralyn.

As Illya gave another nod, she continued, "That's right. And I actually have way more magic circuits than a normal mage. My grandfather made sure I was implanted with extra. While most mages only have a couple dozen natural circuits, over 75% of my body is fitted with them."

Illya's prideful tone was back and this time it was supplemented by a large grin. Eralyn took note that Illya certainly seemed to lack modesty. Despite the possible personality flaw, she couldn't hold back a small smile at her partner's confident demeanor. Still smiling slightly she asked, "So how exactly would you go about looking at my magic circuits?"

Illya stood up and moved to where she was standing just in front of Eralyn. She held out her hands and a number of wire thin strands of glowing string formed from her fingers.

"With these," the young mage stated, "These will attach to your face and relay to me feedback on your magical circuits. Won't hurt a bit."

Eralyn instinctively leaned back, unsure, but curiosity got the better of her and she slowly nodded. Illya smiled sweetly as she flicked her fingers. The strands touched her cheeks and her forehead and Eralyn suddenly felt what she assumed was some sort of electric shock.

"Ow!"

Illya gave a giggle as she said, "I might have lied a little about that last part."

As the pain subsided, Eralyn glowered, unamused, at the beaming Illya. Then Illya closed her eyes and seemed to focus. It was mere seconds before Illya very suddenly flew backwards as if thrown by some invisible person. She hit the wall of the plane hard and slumped into the chair, dazed. Eralyn immediately was on her feet and over by Illya, "Illya!"

The commotion had obviously drawn the attention of the pilot who came over the intercom, "Is everything alright back there?"

Eralyn began to call out for help, but Illya's voice shouted back first, "Yes! We're fine!"

That seemed to be enough for the pilot as he didn't comment further. Eralyn looked at Illya concerned, "Are you sure you're alright?"

Illya waved her off and breathed, "I'm fine. Just...got the air knocked out of me."

She looked up at Eralyn who saw a mixture of shock and awe on the other girls face. Illya cocked her head at Eralyn and breathed, "How do you not know?"

"Know what?" Eralyn asked, the concern in her voice shifting toward herself more so than toward Illya's well being.

"Magic," Illya elaborated, "Your magical circuits...I've never seen anything like them. They're so potent that even without proper training you should have managed something. I mean most of them are dormant, sure, but the ones that are active are incredible. If all of them were turned on, you'd dwarf even me in magical power and that shouldn't be possible naturally."

Eralyn frowned, "What does that mean?"

Illya pursed her lips, "I'm not sure. There shouldn't be anyone born with that extensive of a magic circuit network. Well aside from me that is. The response I got from your magic circuits was so powerful even the minute fraction active knocked me back. It felt like I got hit by a Servant. And trust me, I know how that feels."

Eralyn was growing more concerned by the minute, unsure what to make of this development. Illya seemed to notice Eralyn's slight distress and followed up quickly with, "But at the moment, it doesn't matter."

Eralyn looked up, the sentence distracting her, "What?"

"We can't do anything with them right now so there's no point in really worrying about them. Especially not when we could potentially find ourselves fighting for our lives in just a few short hours!"

Eralyn blinked at Illya, "Was that last part supposed to comforting?"

"Not really," Illya laughed, "But, you don't need to worry. My Berserker is more than powerful enough to make up for any slack your Lancer brings."

Eralyn's found that her concern with the revelation was diminishing and she managed a scowl, "Are you implying Michael and I are going to be in the way?"

"Maybe a little," Illya responded playfully.

"Let's talk about something else," Eralyn suggested while giving Illya another unamused look.

Illya giggled as she nodded and asked, "So, if you don't mind my asking, why are your clothes so ratty?"

Eralyn found herself fumbling to form an answer; the major shift in conversation topic as well as Illya's bluntness had caught her off guard. Recovering quickly, however, she replied, "Well it's kind of the only thing I have to wear."

"That's the only outfit you own?" Illya was confused; it was difficult for her to imagine someone with just one pair of clothing.

"Well it's kind of hard to get new clothes when you're homeless," Eralyn chuckled dryly.

It was Illya's turn to be caught off guard, "You're homeless?"

"Have been for almost four years," Eralyn nodded.

"What about your mom and dad? Are they homeless too?"

Eralyn shook her head as it drooped a little and said, somberly, "No. They died in a car accident when I was ten."

"I'm sorry," Illya murmured.

Eralyn picked her head up and said with a sad smile, "It's alright. I came to terms with it a good while back."

The teenager took in a deep breath to clear her head and exhaled sharply before asking, "What about you? Are your parents fine with their kid running around fighting in secret wars and against evil forces?"

"My parents are dead too," Illya said rather plainly.

"Oh…" Eralyn hadn't expect such a blunt answer, "How did they…I'm sorry. Nevermind. It's a bad question to ask."

Illya shook her head, "No, it's fine. My mother died fighting in the Fourth Holy Grail War."

"What about your dad?"

"He fought in the war too, but he lived. He didn't come back though," Illya said sourly, "I guess he was too ashamed at having gotten my mother killed and failing to win the war that he couldn't come back to me."

"He abandoned you?" Eralyn couldn't believe it.

"Yeah," Illya half chuckled, "But he apparently got over his failure because he adopted a young boy and raised him as his son. He still never came back for me though."

"I'm sorry," Eralyn started, "That's a terrible thing to happen to anyone. You said he died though."

"Some illness got him before I made it to Fuyuki to find him. It was a little disappointing because I would have preferred to have done it myself."

The bitterness in Illya's tone showed that it was a very sore subject for her. Before Earlyn could try and change the topic, however, Illya continued on, "But there was a silver lining. I met the boy he adopted, my brother, and unlike my father he's kind and caring and fun. You actually met him."

Eralyn cocked her head, not remembering meeting anyone she would have assumed was her brother, "I did?"

"Mhmm. Shirou! He's the master of Saber."

That was definitely surprising, "Really? _He's_ your brother?"

"And he's been nothing but kind to me despite me trying to kill him the first time we met…"

Her sentence trailed off and she gave a weak chuckle. Eralyn let out a sigh; Illya was definitely something else. Without warning, Illya clapped her hands together and announced, "But talk about family aside, we need to focus on the important things!"

"Like what?" Eralyn questioned, unsure if she was going to like the answer or not.

"Like getting you some new clothes!"

Illya got up and rushed over to the door close by in the back and opened it. Eralyn hadn't bothered to explore the jet when she boarded, so she was shocked to see a walk in closet. She stood up and slowly moved forward looking inside at the large array of different clothes. She looked at the other girl and said, "Illya, this is incredible! Why do you have so much clothing on a jet?"

"Why not?" Illya grinned. Taking Eralyn by the arm, she dragged her into the room and said, "Ella, we're going to have so much fun!"

 **Day 3: 11:42 AM: 20 miles outside of Myitkyina, Burma**

The cart shook hard and Eralyn almost lost her balance. She looked at Illya who seemed equally dissatisfied with their means of transportation. One of the wheels hit a pothole on the dirt and rock road and Eralyn felt herself rise into the air. She landed hard on her butt and growled. Rubbing the small of her back, she asked, "Illya is this really the only way to get where we're going?"

Illya nodded, grimacing, "Unfortunately. There aren't any roads meant for cars near where we need to be."

The two girls had touched down in Myitkyina at around four thirty in the morning. Just prior to landing Illya had revealed that Waver had given her the coordinates to the grail piece they were tasked with retrieving. They put it's location almost twenty five miles outside of Myitkyina and far up the side of a mountain. After taking a couple hours to rest up, the two had had their pilot (who was fluent in the native language) ask around about what was up there. It turned out the coordinates lead to some sort of ancient monastery presently being occupied by an order of solitary monks. There was a short access road reachable via car, but beyond that required alternative means of transportation. As such, Illya had managed to hire out a native that spoke some english to drive them the rest of the way. Much to the chagrin of the girls, the trip on the horse drawn carriage had taken nearly two and a half hours.

Eralyn groaned and righted herself. She straightened out her outfit which proved to be a little trying as she wasn't used to the clothes. Illya had found a long sleeve, black shirt that Eralyn liked, but it was just a hair too small because of the slight height difference between the two girls. The navy blue jeans Illya had recommended, on the other hand, fortunately fit perfectly. A nice looking burgandy jacket protected her from the chilly temperature. Just as she finished getting herself comfortable again, the cart hit another hole. This time Eralyn fell into the bed of the carriage. She quickly sat up and irritatedly removed strands of straw from her hair. Illya giggled slightly, but stopped when Eralyn shot her a glare. Eralyn turned to the driver and asked, "How much longer till we get there?"

The older man turned and said in broken english, "Almost there. Right up there."

He pointed in front of him and both of the girls looked where his finger indicated. On both sides of the cart was dense forest; the forest stretched far up the mountain side and was visible in the distance from the city. Coming up the the access road and about an hour down it, the scenery had been pretty open with large fields pouring into the distance littered with small creeks and rivers. Halfway into their trip to the monastery, however, the surroundings had changed into the thick foliage they'd viewed from the city. A couple hundred feet through the trees in front of them was a stone archway that looked incredibly old and worn. As they approached it, he said, "I take you as far as the arch. Then you are on your own."

Illya gave a frown, "I thought you were going to take us all the way to the monastery."

The man shook his head, "No. Once I would have. Now, the pathway is cursed. People who go up do not come down."

Illya rolled her eyes, but said nothing more. It took just a few minutes to reach the arch and Illya and Eralyn both gratefully dismounted. The minute they were off, the man steered his horses around and began trotting down the path. He waved and yelled, "Good luck!"

Illya turned to Eralyn and said, "You ready?"

Eralyn looked through the archway and saw a very steep, very uneven stairway carved into the ground. She groaned and murmured, "I hate stairs…."

"Oh?" Illya said, "But you said you were homeless. Walking should come natural to you!"

Eralyn shot Illya an unamused look and said, "Let's just go."

Illya giggled and began skipping up the stairs.

The stairs wound up the mountain for ages. They'd been walking for nearly an hour straight up when Eralyn suddenly plopped down and said, breathing heavily, "I can't walk anymore. We need to rest."

As soon as she said it, the air next to her wavered and a voice asked, "Would you like me to carry you the rest of the way?"

Eralyn jumped out of her skin. She slid to the other side of the stairs and shouted, "Michael! Don't do that!"

Illya saw the Servant give Eralyn a grin as he said, "Apologies. Just figured I'd offer a helping hand."

Eralyn exhaled and said, "I don't mind that, just don't randomly appear. I'm still getting used to this."

"Why do you call him 'Michael'?" Illya suddenly asked.

Eralyn turned to him, raising an eyebrow, and inquired, "What else would I call him? Lancer? Why call him a name that's not his own?"

Illya thought a moment before replying, "Well it's to keep his identity safe. If an enemy knows his identity, they can make better attempts at coming up with strategies to beat him."

"Says the girl who blatantly revealed her Servant's identity," Michael chuckled.

Illya scowled, "My situation was different. Berserker is more than capable of overcoming anything thrown at him. Knowing his identity won't save you."

"How well did that turn out for you last time?"

Illya let out a growl this time; Michael has obviously struck a nerve. Illya began to give a retort, but Eralyn cut her off to address her Servant, "Michael stop. You're being rude."

Michael let out a chuckle, "Again, my apologies. Couldn't resist the chance to poke some fun."

Illya seemed less than satisfied, but didn't push the issue. She did, however, ask, "So how do you know all of that? Servants might get general knowledge of a previous Grail War, but that kind of knowledge require specifics."

"I have my ways," Michael grinned.

Before Illya could comment further, Michael continued, "But I suppose I should inform you of my real reason for materializing. We have company."

Eralyn saw Illya go immediately on alert. The young mage began looking around for any sign of movement. Eralyn, however, saw him first. Stepping out from behind a tree further up the trail was a man. Eralyn pointed him out to Illya. He was average height and had his long, black hair pulled into a spiky bun. He was obviously oriental and wore a dark, baggy gi. Around his waist hung two plated metal sheets that covered the sides of his legs. Also on his waist was a katana. His attention focused on Michael as he stated, "I'm impressed you could sense me. That's never happened before."

Michael gave a modest shrug, "I almost didn't. Saw a shift in the wind and figured the most logical answer was someone was blocking it. Although no normal person should be able to hide from me. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're a Servant?"

As soon as the word Servant was mentioned, Illya sprang to action. She quickly moved away from the man further up and called out, "Berserker!"

The air warped in front of her and Berserker rapidly materialized, announcing himself with a loud roar. He stood defensively in front of Illya and leveled his weapon at the man. Eralyn began to call everyone's attention to try and prevent unnecessary fighting, but the man spoke quicker, "I will give you to the count of five to leave. After that, you will be dealt with accordingly. One."

He moved his hand to the handle of his blade.

"Two"

He crouched slightly leaned forward to keep himself centered.

"Three."

Illya looked at Berserker and said, "He was able to expertly hide his presence. He's most likely an Assassin class Servant. They're weak in direct combat."

"Four."

"Berserker! Kill-"

"Five."

There was a violent gust of wind that Eralyn had to shield her face from in addition to an earth shattering boom. Looking back up, she saw that the man was nowhere to be seen. A voice in the distance behind them announced where the man was, "Once again I find myself impressed. Not only are you still alive, but you managed to dodge my complete strike."

Eralyn twirled around and saw the man standing erect almost twice the distance he had been away from them. She couldn't believe it; in a fraction of a second, the man had covered almost 300 feet. She turned to Illya and was shocked to see her trembling. Eralyn inched toward her and asked, "Illya?"

Illya slowly turned to Eralyn and said, "Berserker…"

Eralyn turned to the behemoth and gasped. Though he was standing, Eralyn counted eight holes in his body; three on each arm (one on the shoulder, one at the elbow, and one at the wrist), one in the middle of his chest, and one just below his waist. A deep gash was present on the inner end of Berserker's clavicle indicating that head was supposed to be hit as well. Fortunately it was tilted to the side. Illya, still trembling, looked at the man and said, "Eight lives instantly gone. That's…."

She couldn't even manage to complete her sentence. Eralyn saw the man move and retake the stance. Before she could even attempt to call out, the wind returned. This time, however, the loud clanging of steel on steel reverberated through the air. Something rocketed through the trees to the left of of the group and wood splinters exploded outward as the trees were shattered. As her vision refocused, Eralyn saw Michael standing in the path that the other Servant would have taken. He was stanced sideways and a long, ornate spear was positioned along the horizontal length of his body. The spear was slightly taller than Michael and pure white. A gold, thorn-like pattern descended the entire shaft. Looking directly at it hurt Eralyn's eyes. She redirected her gaze to Michael's face and breathed, "Whoa."

A couple dozen yards off, the group saw the man rise from the ruined pile of trees. He brushed himself off and Michael said, "So you've got the sword skill of a Saber, the speed and stealth of an Assassin, and the durability of a Berserker. Just what exactly are you?"

The man cracked his neck as he began moving back toward the group and said, "Well you just listed three options. Process of elimination should yield to you the desired answer."

As Michael readied his spear, the man too prepared his sword. Having made it very apparent that she wasn't going to get a word out otherwise, Eralyn closed her eyes and shouted, "Would you two stop fighting for one second?!"

Michael glanced back at her, unsure how he should respond. The man too gave a pause, slightly surprised at the call for parley. The decision for a ceasefire was made by a second voice coming, again, from further up the path, "Assassin, stand down."

The Servant nodded and dematerialized. Eralyn heard Michael murmur, "That was going to be my second guess."

All heads turned toward the source of the voice and saw another man. He was similar in height and build to Assassin but wore a modern looking suit and had short, black hair. He looked down at the group, hands in his pockets, and said, "You have one chance to state your reason for being here. If it is not sufficient, Assassin will continue his assault."

Eralyn looked to Illya who was finally calming down and saw her shake her head. Frowning, Eralyn walked over to her and whispered, "We need to tell him why we're here."

"No we don't!" Illya quietly answered back, "We need to retreat and reorganize. His Servant is much stronger that I could have anticipated. Berserker won't last against another shot like that."

"But he might be able to help us," countered Eralyn.

"Or he could just kill us all. I don't see Lancer doing any better than Berserker. We need to come up with a strategy."

Eralyn rolled her eyes, "I don't think he's going to kill us. Like you said, it'd be easy for him to do it now. That master is giving us a chance to explain things to him. We should take that opportunity to see if he knows anything or if he can offer us any help."

Illya scowled, going into thought. After a couple seconds, she groaned in defeat and murmured, "Fine, but if we die, it's you're fault."

Eralyn nodded and turned back to the man. She took a deep breath and then did her best to explain why they were there, "We're from the Mages Association. We're here to collect a small object so that we can keep it safe."

"The Holy Grail fragment, then?"

Eralyn blinked at him and glanced to Illya who looked equally as surprised. Eralyn gulped and said, "Then you know what we're looking for?"

"Obviously. Now what makes you think that it'd be safer with you than here with me?" he asked.

Illya chimed in, "Wait. You're protecting it?"

"Of course," the man answered, "What else would I do with it?"

"Then that means that you're not with the other group," Illya said mostly to herself.

This seemed to catch the man's attention, "Other group?"

"Yeah," Eralyn said, "There's another group out there with Servants of their own that are trying to gather the grail pieces. We're trying to stop them."

The man looked over the group, scrutinizing them briefly, before turning and saying, "My name is Yuro Kazeshini. Follow me. It will take the monks at least twelve hours to undo their protection ritual around the fragment. You can wait in the monastery until they are finished. While you're waiting, you can catch me up on what the situation is."

Eralyn looked at Illya, pleased. Illya sighed and said, "I guess you were right."

She shifted her attention to Berserker and said, "You are dismissed Berseker, but stay close."

The large Servant grunted and then dematerialized. Eralyn turned to Michael and said, "You can go too, Michael."

Michael chuckled and said, "I don't think so. I'm going to stick around just in case. Can't leave you two unattended."

"Fine," sighed Eralyn, "Just behave yourself."

As the group began following Yuro, Michael said, "No promises."


	7. Chapter 7

**Day 3: 1:02 PM: Entrance to Monk Monastery - Myitkyina, Burma**

After another fifteen minutes of walking, the end of the stairs was finally in sight. With their goal within their reach, Illya and Eralyn were reinvigorated. They rapidly covered the couple steps that still separated them from Yuro and passed him to make it to the top. Upon arriving, they slouched in an archway that was virtually identical to the one that they had passed through down at the start of the path. They only had a couple seconds to catch their breath as Yuro breached the archway and continued walking away without them. The two girls scrambled to their feet and quickly moved next to him. As they did so, they got their first view of the actual monastery.

The archway opened out onto a wide, clear plateau that was lined with rows of simple looking buildings on either side of the main walkway. At the end of the main path, about two football fields straight ahead, was a large monolithic structure carved into the mountain side. Easily six or seven stories tall, the entrance was massive and supported by six evenly spaced columns. A wide opening into the mountain that was almost as tall as the structure itself stretched back into a dimly lit corridor. From the distance they were at, Illya and Eralyn couldn't see what was casting the light, but they suspected it was simply torches. The group came to a halt as Yuro stopped. Coming from the large entrance was an elderly looking man dressed in a red cloth that was draped around his body; this garb was worn by every monk they could see. Despite his old appearance, he fleetly covered the distance and bowed to Yuro. Yuro reciprocated the gesture with a bow of his own. When both were righted, the elderly monk began speaking to Yuro in what Illya assumed was Burmese. Your glanced back at the girls and Michael as he answered back in the same language.

After a small back and forth, the monk nodded and turned to the girls and Michael. He smiled at them and shook each of their hands, greeting them each as he did so. He then turned around to begin heading back in the direction he came from. Yuro followed after him and waved for the others to do the same. Eralyn moved up beside Yuro and asked, "Where are we going?"

"To the antechamber housing the Grail fragment," he said plainly, "I figured you'd want confirmation."

"That would be nice," Illya chimed.

"I can tell you now that I sense a heavy magical presence below us," Michael said, "I'd say we're heading in the right direction."

Yuro said nothing more as the group moved on.

Approaching the front of the monastery yielded an even more impressive impression than the two girls had previously had. Everything seemed to flow perfectly into the mountain indicating that the whole structure had required virtually no extra construction outside of the stone carving; it was a single piece of stone shaped in an extraordinary fashion. Illya looked at the intrinsic designs that lined the walls and breathed, "Amazing."

Michael let out a whistle to show that he too was impressed, "This is some stellar stone work."

Eralyn nodded, agreeing with both her companions.

There was a small flight of stairs that leveled off into a platform. The gaping entryway loomed in front of them. If it weren't for it being broad daylight, Eralyn probably would have been extremely intimidated by it. Despite her mind telling her to hesitate, however, she forced herself to venture on and not fall behind the others. As the group entered the large crevice, they were met with a very sudden drop in temperature. The noontime sun had warmed up the air outside a little so that at least it wasn't below freezing. Stepping past the threshold, on the other hand caused Eralyn to noticeably shiver. Illya looked at her and asked, "Are you alright?"

Eralyn rubbed her shoulders and answered, "I don't know. I'm just really cold now. A lot more than before."

"Ah. It's probably the bounded field we passed through."

"Bounded field?"

"It's a kind of barrier that's supposed to protect certain buildings and structures. The one we just passed through is exceptionally powerful."

"So how does it protect something?" Eralyn inquired.

"Well it's different for each bounded field depending on the needs of the caster. In this case I believe it's supposed to-"

"Stop the heart of anyone who does not have proper clearance," Yuro finished bluntly.

"Oh…" Illya said, "That would not have been my first guess."

Eralyn blinked at Yuro, "Then how did we pass through?"

"Obviously we were worthy," Michael chuckled.

Eralyn shot him a look, "You know what I mean. How do we have proper clearance?"

"Remember Master Myine shaking your hands? Check your palm," Yuro explained, not breaking stride.

Everyone immediately did so and saw a small, faint mark in the center of their palm. Eralyn looked up, slightly impressed, "Cool."

She couldn't tell because of how short it lasted, but Eralyn thought she saw the faintest of smiles tug on Yuro's face when she said that. She processed it away in her mind for later.

The rest of the walk was made in relative silence. A short distance into the crevice led them into a large, domed room. A circle of columns supported the mountain's weight and were positioned toward the outer edges of the chamber. A mosaic-like pattern was embedded into the floor and was surprisingly well polished. In addition to the numerous torches granting light to it, a hole cut from the roof bathed the room in sunlight. There were a couple different archways lead into different areas of the monastery, but the group wasn't being lead toward any of them. Instead the group was making their way to the center of the room. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that a narrow, spiral staircase descended into the ground at the chamber's center. The girls and Michael were led down the stairwell for close to five minutes. The stairs emptied out into a small antechamber. Illya and Eralyn gasped when they registered what was in it.

Thirteen monks sat equidistant around a small stone table. Suspended in the air was a glowing, golden piece of metal. While there wasn't anything immediately visible, the dim light from the low burning torches occasionally glinted off some sort of invisible barrier. The monks looked up as the group entered the room. Master Myine began speaking in a low voice at them. As he did so, eye glanced between the older monk and the girls. He didn't speak long and when he did, the monks shifted to being on their knees. The held their hands out to the barrier and began chanting in unison. Master Myine turned and smiled at the group, nodding toward the stairs. Understanding what he was saying, the girls and Michael began to move back up the stairwell.

When they were out of view of the room, Eralyn asked, "Illya, was that it?"

Illya nodded, "Mhmm. That was definitely a Grail fragment."

She turned to Yuro and asked, "So it's going to take a couple hours to take down that barrier?"

He nodded, "Yes. In the meantime, you can fill me in on what's going on. I knew something was up when Assassin was summoned, but when no one came, I figured I'd bide my time. Obviously I can't do that now."

Illya let out a sigh and nodded back. A small smile pulled at Eralyn's lips; Illya apparently didn't like having to explain things to people. They made their way back up and out to the entrance. When they reached it Master Myine bowed to Yuro and the group and went his separate way. Yuro then led them to a slightly smaller building on the edge of the encampment. It was a plain stone hovel like the rest of them, but had a roof made of hay and mud rather than wood. It also looked slightly newer compared to the others. He opened the door and let them file in. Entering caused Eralyn to say, "Holy crap!"

The entire single room building was armed to the teeth. Everything from combat knives to pistols to assault rifles to RPGs were neatly organized by type and evenly placed around the room. Michael let out another whistle, "Now this is more like it. Are all the monks packing a small armory? If your answer is yes, I'll put that stuff I swiped back where I got it. I mean damn. This brings a whole new meaning to battle monks. I might need to join your monkly order if this is the standard care pack-oof!"

Eralyn elbowed him in the ribs. Michael managed a strained chuckle, "Sorry."

Seemingly unaffected by Michael's joking attitude, Yuro answered, "No. My residence is unique. And I'd rather not discuss my cache of weapons. My primary concern is figuring out what the situation involving the Holy Grail is."

He took a seat and motioned for the others to find one as well. When everyone was settled, Illya took a deep breath and began recounting everything they knew. Yuro listed quietly, not asking questions nor making comments, only giving the occasional nod. When she was done, Yuro took a few moments to process everything. Eventually he spoke, "So do you plan on departing as soon as you have the fragment?"

"Yes," Illya said, "Is that a problem?"

"Not at all. I just wanted to know how long I had to collect my things.."

Illya raised an eyebrow, "Wait. You want to come with us?"

"Of course," responded Yuro, "I have vowed to safeguard the Grail fragment for the monastery. I won't willingly let it out of my care."

"Well I don't-"

Eralyn interjected into Illya's comment, "That's great! The more help the better!"

Illya narrowed her eyes and Eralyn, clearly not thrilled with the idea. Eralyn shot her a smile to try and placate her friend and then turned back to Yuro, "So now what?"

"Now we need to introduce our Servants properly. I won't be able to make proper tactical decisions without knowing their true identities," Yuro replied.

Illya looked at him for a minute. He knew what the Holy Grail was, he knew what Servants were, he had a stockpile of different weapons, and was talking about making strategy. She spoke what she was thinking out loud, "Who are you?"

Without missing a beat, he said, "The man who's waiting for you to tell me the information I asked for."

Illya scowled as Eralyn attempted to stifle a chuckle. After a short silence, Yuro sighed and said, "Since you seem to be unwilling to go first, I will. Assassin's true identity is Kawakami Gensai, one of the four Hitokiri Battousai. As you've already witnessed, he was know in life for his god-like speed. Now it's your turn."

Illya frowned at him, clearly debating what she should do. Eralyn clearing her throat, however, made her relent, "Fine. Berserker is Hercules, son of Zeus."

Realizing that she also had yet to properly introduce herself, she also added, "And I am Illyasviel von Einzbern, head of the Einzbern family."

"Good on you!" Michael clapped, "You're learning! Hesitation before revealing your Servant's identity can never be a bad thing! That said, I am Michael Inlustrem, archangel of the Divine and leader of the Divine Army! And that's my master, Eralyn."

Eralyn buried her face in her hands and grumbled, "You are such a hypocrite."

In response, Michael gave her toothy grin.

"The archangel of the Divine?" Yuro questioned, "I'd have figured you more suited to the Saber class based on what your lore describes."

"Yeah..." Michael said somewhat disappointed, "Unfortunately the Grail decided that someone else would be the better Saber pick. Thus I'm stuck as Lancer. Now I could use my sword, but my Servant parameters are much higher when I wield a pole arm. So I'm borrowing my brother's spear. It's lighter than I'm used to, but I'm making due."

"I see…well that should be sufficient for the time being."

"What's next then?" Illya inquired.

Yuro thought a moment before saying, "For now, it might be a good idea to rest."

* * *

Eralyn tossed and turned on the stiff mattress she was laying on. She couldn't sleep; she'd had trouble sleeping the past couple evenings. Eralyn let out a sigh; she knew the reason why, but refused to think about it. Rolling over she looked at Illya who was sleeping like a baby. She let out a chuckle; Illya was probably sleeping so soundly because of the nine foot demigod she had guarding her. She rolled again, this time on her back and stared at the ceiling. In the span of just four days her entire life had gone in a direction she wouldn't have thought possible in her wildest dreams. She exhaled sharply and sat up. She needed some air. Maybe walking would tire her out.

Eralyn quietly made her way to the door and did her best to stealthily exit the small shack the monks were letting them stay in for the evening. Stepping out into the night caused her to shiver. The setting of the sun had disintegrated any trace of warmth the area had. The air wasn't as cold as Seattle, but it was trying hard. She rubbed her hands together and looked around. As she did so her eyes locked onto a figure standing at the edge of the cliff side overlooking the forest. Her eyes were properly adjusting now to the dim moonlight and she realized it was Yuro. She made her way over to him. Just as she was about to announce herself, Yuro asked, "Why aren't you asleep?"

Eralyn jumped at the sudden sound of his voice. Quickly fumbling for an answer she said, "Couldn't make myself tired. Why are you awake?"

"The same reason," he answered slowly.

A moment of silence followed which was broken by Eralyn saying, "Can I ask you a question?"

Yuro continued looking out into the woods as he answered, "You may, but I don't promise an answer."

Eralyn took a moment to compose herself before asking, "Why did you smile earlier?"

That made the man turn around, "What?"

"Back when you were explaining how we could pass through the bounded field," Eralyn elaborated, "I saw you smile. Sorry if this is rude, but you don't look like the kind of person who smiles a lot."

Eralyn was surprised to see him chuckled. He nodded, "You're not wrong. Smiling isn't something I've done a lot of in a long time. As for my earlier smile...you simply reminded me of someone I once knew."

His smile faded away once again. Eralyn was curious now, but she decided not to question him further about it. Instead she asked another question she'd been wondering, "Why are you living with monks?"

Eralyn thought Yuro might smile again, but his stoic expression endured. It was Yuro's turn to pose to compose and answer. After a minute he said, "Atonement I suppose."

Eralyn cocked her head not expecting that answer, "Atonement?"

Yuro sighed and went quiet again. He was choosing his next words in his mind before saying them aloud, "My profession for close to twenty years was as a mercenary."

"That would explain why your house is better armed than most armies," Eralyn chuckled.

"That doesn't bother you?" questioned Yuro, "My being an assassin that is?"

"Should it?" the young girl asked.

"For some it has caused issues in the past," Yuro stated in explanation.

"Before three days ago I had no idea magic was real. I am now hanging out with an archangel of Heaven, Hercules, a samurai, and a girl younger than me that has more money than the president of the United States. A guy who used to kill people for a living is not the odd one out."

Yuro's emotionless demeanor once again failed as a small smile broke out on his face. Eralyn returned the smile and said, "Well it's good to see that that one smile earlier wasn't a fluke."

"Indeed," Yuro said, "It's been over a year since I've smiled this much."

More silence followed. Finally Eralyn said, "So...to kill other people you'd probably have to not care a whole lot about doing it, right? And I kind of figure you were good at your job; you just kinda give off that vibe. So why would you be wanting to atone?"

Yuro blinked at her bluntness. Letting out a sigh, he answered, "It catches up with you. Things happen and you realize that some things you've done in your life that you considered gray were very obviously not. And so I'm looking for some way to find any semblance of peace I can."

A voice from the air spoke up, "Preach it."

Eralyn jumped again at yet another unexpected voice. Her surprise quickly turned to irritation as she growled, "Michael…"

Michael immediately materialized sitting on the ground a short distance away, grinning, "Yes?"

Eralyn narrowed her eyes, "Do you understand anything about privacy?"

Michael nodded, "Sure. I give you space when it's necessary; when you're using the bathroom, when you're changing clothes, when you honestly need a moment to yourself, stuff like that. Anything else just expect me nearby at all times."

She went to yell at him, but found herself yawning the instant she opened her mouth. The yawn was long and deep and she cursed under her breath the instant she could. She pursed her lips and said, "Go away for a minute or two. I'm almost done talking with Yuro…"

"Sure thing. I'll be nearby if you need me," Michael said, still grinning. And with that, he vanished.

Eralyn turned to Yuro and murmured, "Sorry."

"It's fine," he said, obviously not phased.

The girl yawned again and frowned, "Well I guess my body is finally tired."

"It would seem so. I take it you're going to bed now?"

"Probably," she found another yawn escaping her lips against her protests, "Damnit!"

Yuro didn't say anything, simply watching her. After yet another yawn, Eralyn groaned and said, "Fine...I'm going to bed."

She turned to leave, but stopped as something came to her mind, "Hey, Yuro?"

"Yes?"

Eralyn faced him as she asked, "I'm not complaining or anything, but why did you talk to me? So openly that is."

Yuro shrugged, "Like I said; you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago. Have a good night Erayln."

Eralyn huffed at the vague answer, but was too tired to press further. She nodded and gave a wave as she turned to go back to bed.

 **Day 4: 9:02 AM: Grail Fragment Antechamber, Monk Monastery - Myitkyina, Burma**

Eralyn was still rubbing sleep from her eyes as they descended the staircase to the antechamber. She'd gone to sleep late and been woken up much earlier than she was used to. Coupled with the general lack of consistent sleep over the last few days, it was finally catching up with her. Thinking back on it, she had no idea why it took so long for her to tucker out last night. Shrugging it off, she lazily followed the group into the room. The monks were now absent and only the Grail fragment resided in it, still being suspended mid air.

Illya immediately walked up to it and paused at the edge of the table it floated above. She turned to Yuro for permission and he gave a nod. Not needing anything more, she reached up and swiftly took it. When she touched it she briefly felt a surge of magical energy resonate with her magical circuits. She turned to face Eralyn and said, smiling, "Mission accomplished, Ella."

Eralyn smiled back and said, "Now back to the Clocktower, right?"

Illya nodded, "Let's hurry. I'm sure Shirou is already back and I can't wait to see him!"

Chuckling, Eralyn said, "Got it."

The walk back to the entrance was much quicker as everyone was eager to get back. As they exited the bounded field, Eralyn and Illya turned to Master Myine and bowed to indicate their thanks. He bowed back and then turned to Yuro. They bowed and when they righted, Master Myine took a step forward and hugged Yuro. Yuro obviously wasn't expecting the tender gesture, but quickly recovered and returned it. As they parted the monk said something to Yuro the girls didn't understand. Yuro nodded and gave one final bow. He then turned away and began leading the girls.

While Yuro and Illya went ahead, Eralyn stopped for a moment to retie her shoes which were coming loose. As she finished she skipped off the ground to pick up speed to catch up with the group. She was just about to them when she suddenly found herself sailing through the air. She registered she was being held and turned her head to see Michael carrying her back toward the monastery entrance. A split second later, a multi-colored arc of energy exploded through the settlement. The sound was deafening and Eralyn found herself struggling to believe what had just happened. A massive fissure had been carved into the ground and many of the buildings near it had been reduced to rubble. Fires were spreading rapidly and shouts were being flung into the air in an attempt to figure out what was going on.

Michael landed near the steps and set Eralyn down. When she was steady she asked, "What just happened?"

Michael's attention was fixated elsewhere as he said, "We have company."

Eralyn looked to where he was looking and saw two women. The older of the two looked to be in her late twenties and had brown hair that was tied into a bun. She was wearing a pair of round, black glasses that rested on the lower part of her nose in addition to a white blouse and black slacks. She was also wearing a pair of low heel boots. The second girl was vastly different. She looked to be only slightly older than Eralyn and had long white hair that went past her waist. She was scantily clad wearing nothing by white leggings, white stand alone sleeves, and a white, strapless top that sat snuggle over her bosom. Piercing red eyes sat on a tanned face and bore into Michael. In the girl's hand was an odd looking sword. It was conical in shape and had a multitude of different colors; it looked like a rainbow. Four clawed protrusions extended downward from the sword's circular cross guard and protected her hand which was wielding a plain cylindrical handle.

The older woman smiled and said, "Saber, be a dear and dispose of those two. We're on a schedule and I don't want to be late."

The girl in white nodded and then dashed forward.

* * *

An explosion rocked the earth behind Illya and she turned in time to see Berserker materializing to shield her from the blast. She saw Yuro get whisked out of the way by a materializing Assassin; he was set down a ways behind her. Illya peaked around Berserker and say a wall of fire and smoke blocking her view further out. Suddenly realizing Eralyn wasn't nearby she worriedly called out, "Ella!"

"She's safe. Michael moved her out of the way."

Assassin moved next to her and continued, "You should move back. The enemy is coming and you need to protect the Grail fragment."

Illya nodded, knowing full well that she wasn't going to be able to do anything to aid offensively against an enemy Servant. She jogged backwards and noticed Yuro had disappeared. Deciding now wasn't the time to worry about that, she refocused on the two Servants in front of her. Looking beyond them, she saw a shape forming in the fire. It was present for only a moment before it disappeared. A half second later, a figure sprang from the ground almost silently behind the two Servants. A pale blue and gray scythe with a wicked looking blade swept through the air in an attempt to bisect Berserker and Assassin. Assassin instantly jumped into the air to avoid it and Berserker managed to move his axe-sword into position to block it. The force from the strike still sent Berserker sliding away.

As both Servants steadied themselves, Illya managed to get a good look at the opposing Servant. He was clad in a long, black robe that obscured his face. Long, pale gray arms stretched from the sleeves and gripped the scythe. A man's voice from somewhere nearby shouted, "Rider! Hurry up and finish them off! We don't have time to waste playing around!"

The cloaked figure nodded and said in a deep, raspy voice, "So I face the mighty Hercules? Interesting. This will be a most fun fight."

Illya's heart skipped a beat. How in the hell did that Servant know the identity of Berserker? Unfortunately she didn't have a lot of time to think further about it as Rider dashed forward with a fluidness that was disturbing to witness. Berserker roared and side stepped the attack, launching a downward swing onto the passing Servant. Rider managed to withstand the blow, but the ground beneath him shattered from the over pressure. The enemy servant melted into the ground and the sudden lack of resistance offset Berserker. He stumbled forward as Rider reformed behind him. Rider swung his scythe, but found it parried by a blind swing from Berserker. Berserker quickly righted himself and raised his blade for a powerful downward strike, but stopped short. Illya gasped. A cone shaped black object had shot up from the ground and impaled Berserker through the chest. The heroic spirit coughed up blood and growled weakly at Rider.

Illya was beyond worried at this point. Berserker was down to two lives now and Rider readied his scythe to take yet another from the immobilized Servant. As the scythe whistled downward, a form appeared in between them. It was Assassin. He lashed out with a kick that connected with Rider's midsection, sending the enemy Servant flying backwards. He then quickly drew his blade, slicing the dark spear through Berserker's chest in half. Berserker stumbled forward, freeing himself and immediately began regenerating. He glared at the opposing Servant and bellowed in frustration. He took a step forward, but a hand on his arm made him halt. His head snapped to the source and saw Assassin looking out at Rider. Assassin finally looked to Berserker and said, "You need to calm yourself. This foe is one that poses a significant threat to you. He's fast and can attack from multiple vectors; I'm not sure how he's doing it yet. Blindly attacking is not the route to take when assailing this Servant. I will attempt to create an opening. When you see one, then you strike."

Before he received any confirmation that Berserker understood, Assassin shot forward. Rider seemed to have significant trouble following him, but managed to swipe at him none the less when Assassin got within range. Assassin ducked down and began drawing his sword. His feint worked. Rider adjusted his attack mid-swing in anticipation of the coming strike, but it never came. The instant Rider repositioned himself, Assassin kicked off to the side and darted around to flank him. Still crouched, he slashed out with blinding speed at his opponent's back.

 _CLANG!_

Assassin frowned. A dark shadow-like object was now protruding from the ground. It had intercepted the strike saving Rider. Rider turned his head, his face still obscured by the hood, and said, "Your speed is impressive. I had not expected such dexterity in my opposition. Fortunately I have an ally, one that will make landing a strike on me exceedingly difficult."

"Now I understand. Your shadow is alive, isn't it?" Assassin commented plainly.

Rider chuckled, "As perceptive as you are fast. But you knowing that won't save you."

Assassin smiled, "Perhaps. But we're about to see just how sturdy your shadows are."

Something cast a massive shadow over the two. Assassin dashed out of the way and Rider turned just in time to see Berserker bearing down on him. The massive Servant brought down his axe-sword with shocking speed. A dark mass immediately intercepted the blow, but shattered after just a second of resisting. Rider let out a curse as Berserker followed through with a side swipe. The enemy Servant managed to block it, but was sent flying. Berserker stayed on him, though, continuing his assault; Rider was not going to get away easily. Buildings were shattered and trees splinted as Berserker kept pressing into Rider, not allowing his opponent any respite. Unfortunately Rider's defense held up and Berserker found that very little damage was being done. As the assault carried on into the treeline, Berserker vaguely heard a voice calling in the background, "Berserker! Let up! You're losing control of the fight!"

It was Assassin, but he didn't care. Rider had caused him nothing but trouble and he was going to hit him eventually. He brought his weapon above his head and prepared for a powerful strike. Behind him, shadows began to bubble and suddenly three spears shot forth from them. This time Illya's voice entered his ears, "BERSERKER!"

Without hesitating, Berserker turned on a dime and lashed out at the oncoming attack. His sword hit dead on and shattered all three spears. He began to turn to face Rider, but felt a stabbing pain in his neck. Glancing down revealed Rider's scythe to have pierced his throat. Berserker barely managed a grunt as he felt yet another of his lives leave him. He collapsed to his knees, his body trying to regenerate, but failing to do so because of the obstruction. Rider slid down the length of the scythe and hissed, "Soon it will all be over great Hercules. Soon you will go to the Underworld where your soul will rot for the rest of time."

Berserker growled in response. He then blinked as he barely registered a figure materialize behind Rider. Assassin made another attempt at attacking, but was once again blocked by a shadowy barrier. This time, however, the barrier exploded outward and sent Assassin flying off the cliffside into the forest below. Rider returned his attention to Berserker and lifted his body into the air. He tossed it to the side and let it lay crumpled. With both opponents virtually out for the count, he turned his attention to the girl who was looking on in horror. He melted into the ground and sprang forth in front of her. Illya stumbled back, looking for a way out. Realizing there was no escape her fear turned into frustration. She'd come all this way only to once again find herself at the mercy of the enemy. She growled at Rider and started to curse him, but he whipped out the bottom of his scythe and tapped her in the chest. The tap, however, contained sufficient force to send her spiralling across the ground. The wind left her lungs and she felt the Grail shard fly free from her hand. As her tumbling ceased, she found it very hard to move. Every part of her body hurt and she struggled to lift herself off the ground. She saw Rider, now ignoring her, move toward the Grail fragment that was lying in the middle of the road. She tried to call out to him, to distract him, to do something, but couldn't form the words. She grit her teeth, furious at her inability to do what she intended. Then she heard a voice, "Rider! Tank this!"

Illya turned to see Yuro standing at the top of a large pile of rubble. On his shoulder was a large cylinder. He pulled a trigger and fire spat from the back of it as a missile rocketed at the Servant. It seemingly hit dead on as Rider was engulfed in an impressive explosion. Unfortunately Illya knew it wouldn't be enough. As the flames died down and the smoke began to clear, it became obvious that Rider was barely phased. He directed his attention to Yuro and began moving toward him. Irritation was evident in his voice as he said, "What did you hope to accomplish by doing that, human? Mortal weapons will not harm me. All you have done now is secured your place in the Underworld. I shall kill you and then the girl and then I will collect the fragment of the Holy Grail for my master. There is nothing you can do about it."

Yuro shrugged, "I might not be able to do anything, but he probably can."

Rider twirled around in time to see Berserker bursting from the treeline. He swiftly covered the distance to the Grail fragment and scooped it up as he darted past it. The second he touched it there was a brilliant flash of light. All present had to shield their eyes to keep from being blinded. As the light died down, Illya felt a surge of magical power swell inside her. She looked at where Berserker was and gasped. His normally incredibly muscular physique had slimmed slightly and Illya could sense that he was in possession of all twelve of the lives his Godhand provided. He was also now holding a bow as opposed to his axe-sword. He leveled his gaze at Rider as he drew an arrow and knocked it. Drawing the bowstring back, he, to Illya's surprise, spoke, "It is not I that will be returning to the Underworld, Charon, it is you. Return to Hades in disgrace."

Berserker released the arrow and as soon as it left its home it split into nine lances of purple energy. A shadowy wall shot up from the ground to defend Rider, but its durability failed almost instantly. The barrier splintered and all nine shots slammed into Rider's chest. Rider was lifted off the ground and sent flying through the wall of fire nearby, disappearing from view.

* * *

Michael found himself with little time to react as Saber closed the distance between them. She performed an overhead slash with impressive speed, but was fortunately blocked by the spear that rapidly materialized in Michael's hands. He grinned at her and forcibly pushed her off. The parry sent Saber flying into the air. Michael's grin persisted as he quickly stabbed up at his opponent in an attempt to catch her off guard. Saber, however, was prepared. She aimed her weapon to the side and fired off a blast of energy to propel her out of the way. She landed on the ground and found Michael was already upon her. He twirled around to build up momentum and tried to catch her with a sideways slash. To avoid it, Saber immediately dropped to the ground. As the spear cut through the air above her, she rolled away and hopped to her feet. Without any break in her movement, she leveled her weapon and the multi-colored blade transitioned to red. A ball of energy rapidly formed at the tip and then arced out at Michael.

Michael let out a yelp and quickly sliced downward at the blast. The spear split the lance of energy in two with one half carving through some of the nearby buildings and the other half glancing past Eralyn and into the monastery entrance causing it to collapse. After confirming that Eralyn was not harmed, Michael dashed forward and entered into a heated back and forth with Saber. Eralyn watched on in awe. She couldn't even begin to follow the two Servants' movement. For fractions of a second they would appear, weapons locked together, then the combatants would break away and fade from sight. Strident sounds of metal on metal as well as numerous craters forming from the clashing Servants were the only visual evidence of the fight.

Michael reappeared in Eralyn's line of sight as he stabbed at the now visible Saber. Saber smacked the weapon away and lunged at him. Much to the surprise of both Eralyn and Saber, Michael let his spear fly away and he grabbed a hold of his opponent's weapon. He smiled at her as he lifted her up into the air and began to spin around; very quickly he was a twirling blur. When he reached his desired speed, he let Saber go. The enemy Servant shot through the air and impacted one of the still standing columns. Its status as "standing" very quickly vanished as the entire structure was pulverized when Saber hit it. Michael took the moment to catch his breath and jogged over to his spear. As he picked it up, Saber emerged from the rubble, very irked. Michael hopped up and down, shaking himself out while he waited for Saber to descend the steps. When she reached the bottom, Michael spoke, "You're really good, you know that? Exactly what I'd expect from a Saber class Servant. Any chance you'd tell me your name?"

Saber simply looked at him, her look of irritation not diminishing. Michael chuckled, "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

Narrowing her eyes, Saber scrutinized her opponent, unsure of how to respond to the friendly attitude. Michael huffed and grumbled, "Fine! Normally it's 'ladies first,' but I'll kick things off."

He crossed one arm across his chest as he took a bow and said, "I am Michael Inlustrem! Archangel of the Divine!"

Eralyn shot him a look from afar and snapped, "You really like introducing yourself…"

"Just a little," Michael grinned, looking up at her.

"Altera."

Michael turned his attention to Saber, "What was that?"

Saber spoke up louder, "My name. It's Altera."

Michael frowned, "I don't recognize it."

"In this era I seem to have been called something else. People commonly know me as Attila."

Eralyn was surprised to see a look of disgruntlement settle on Michael's face.

"As in 'the Hun'? Attila the Hun?"

Saber nodded, "Correct."

Michael let out an exasperated sigh, "What is wrong with this world? King Arthur's a woman, Attila the freaking Hun is a woman, Alexander the Great is obviously not short, and at one point people said I wore a pink skirt and rainbow colored breastplate. And don't even get me _started_ on Frankenstein. I don't know _who_ is annealing history down here, but these people seriously need to get their facts straight. I mean goddamn! These are some pretty major details! Jeez!"

"Are ya done?" Eralyn scowled.

Michael took a deep breath to try and compose himself before slowly nodded, "Yes. I'm good now."

"Good," Saber commented, "Then let us finish this."

She brought her sword back near her head and held it with both hands while pointing it at Michael. The red claws sprang up and the blade began swirling. Multi-colored energy began pouring off it as it charged up. Michael chuckled and spun his spear over his head before gripping it with both hands. He slouched into a stance that readied him to propel off the ground and gave a smile as the tip of his spear erupted into a lustrous white flame. Eralyn watched, breath held, and waited for the two to clash. Just when it seemed the two were going to attack each other, something flew through the flames nearby and crashed into the mountainside. Eralyn looked at it and saw an incredibly injured body cloaked in a black robe. Movement nearby caused her to look away. A man in a gray hoodie and jeans moved next to the woman, his back to the teenager, "Rebecca we need to go. Something happened to Berserker and he's way out of our league at the moment."

The woman named Rebecca cursed loudly, obviously displeased, and spat, "Saber, retreat. We'll have to finish this another day."

Saber nodded and relaxed, her sword returning to it's normal state. She gave one final look at Michael before she sped to her master and the other man and carried them off the side of the mountain. The cloaked man dissipated into nothingness shortly after. Michael stabbed the end of his spear into the ground and said, "Well that was unexpected."

A large gust of wind swept up behind Eralyn and she turned to see the fire dissipating. Yuro was making his way across the gash in the ground and Berserker simply jumped across with Illya in his hands. Eralyn cocked her head, not entirely sure she was seeing things right. Berserker looked less scary and less brutish. He was also carrying a bow. The Servant gently set Illya down and she stumbled, still slightly in pain from getting thrown aside by Rider. She hobbled forward and was met halfway by Eralyn, "Illya! Are you alright?"

Illya slowly nodded, "Mhmm. Just got a little scuffed up. How about you?"

"I'm fine. More confused than anything else. Wasn't Berserker more...bulky?"

Illya turned to look at her Servant and nodded, "I'm not sure what happened, but his parameters have changed slightly. It's like he's two different classes now: Archer as well as Berserker. I have no idea what to make of it."

"If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was the Holy Grail."

Yuro finally cleared the crevice and was almost to them, "That change didn't happen until Berserker touched the Grail fragment. The Holy Grail is a sentient object; perhaps it sensed that it was in danger and decided to help by upgrading Berserker."

"Makes sense to me," Michael shrugged.

"Whatever the reason," Yuro began, "We should count ourselves lucky. That Rider was incredibly dangerous and going by how ruffed up Lancer is his opponent was no less powerful. We're going to need to be a lot more careful in the future. Now let's hurry back to London. I don't think it's a good idea to stay around here."

"But what about the monks?" Eralyn asked, concerned.

"They're a resourceful bunch. And we're only endangering them further. If the enemy senses we're still here, they could bring back reinforcements. That would only lead to more destruction."

Eralyn frowned. She didn't like it, but she understood what he was saying. Michael put a hand on her head and said, "Focus that concern into resolve. It'll come in handy when we next run into those Servants."

The teenager gave a nod and gave one last look over the ruined settlement as the group set out for the airstrip.


	8. Chapter 8

**Day 3: 10:12 AM: Kita-ku - Osaka, Japan**

Shirou felt like he was back at home with all the hustling and bustling around the crowded city streets. Fuyuki might have been smaller than Osaka, but the volume of traffic didn't seem to vary. Glancing at Rin and Saber, both of them appeared to be in their element as well; which was surprising, at least in Shirou's opinion, in Saber's regard considering the societal differences between England and Japan. But thinking a little more on it, Servants did gain an impressively in depth knowledge of virtually every culture in the world. Shirou chuckled lowly to himself and thought, _That is probably the most convenient part of being a Servant; not having to adjust to whatever setting you're summoned into._

As they kept walking, Shirou continued to keep an eye out for someone with lilac colored hair. They'd touched down about an hour earlier and had had to walk to the ward they were presently in. Numerous buildings were filtering out an ocean of students into the already thick crowd and it was becoming difficult to pick an individual out from everyone else. Shirou turned to Rin and asked, "How's Archer doing?"

Rin shook her head, "I sent him to the tallest location in Osaka, but he hasn't seen her anywhere in the city yet which means she's probably still in a building."

"Perhaps it would be best if we split up," Saber suggested, "We could cover more ground that way and increase our chances of finding Sakura."

Rin nodded in agreement and Shirou said, "Good idea. We'll meet up in Osaka Castle Park around noon?"

Getting two nods of agreement, the group each went off in a separate direction.

 **Day 3: 11:37 AM: Fukishima-ku - Osaka, Japan**

Shirou grimaced. He'd been traveling around the city for nearly two hours and had gotten nowhere. Checking out the university campus in Umeda yielded nothing which prompted Shirou to check the residential area of Fukishima where she was supposed to be staying. He'd gone by her apartment, but it was obvious she was out. Since then he'd been walking around trying to see if he could find any sign of her nearby. Glancing at his watch he saw that he had less than a half hour to meet up with Rin. Letting out a sigh of defeat he turned around to make his way toward the nearest train station.

That's when it happened. He sensed it before he saw it and that split second allowed him to live another day. Immediately materializing his white blade, he spun to the side and parried some sort of projectile. The collision sent his arm reeling back and the object was still moving fast enough to crash through the concrete wall nearby. Shirou winced and shook out his arm before saying, "Who's there?"

In response, something slinked from the shadows of a close by alleyway. Shirou frowned. It was feline in shape, but closer to the size of a puma rather than a house cat. Black, slimy looking skin dripped with some sort of ooze and a long, barbed tail swished back and forth. It lacked a proper head and instead had a single eye about the size of a basketball. It watched Shirou intently, it's large eye unblinking, and then roared. It's eye split apart revealing a gaping maw lined with six rows of razor sharp teeth. He summoned his black blade and got ready to fight. The creature's swishing tail rapidly flicked a number of projectiles at Shirou. Shirou dodged out of the way, the barbs deeply penetrating the ground where he used to be standing, and then sprinted at the creature. He closed the distance in seconds and lashed out with both his swords. The beast attempted to evade, but Shirou's attack was too fast. Two large gashes bore into the monster's eye and it howled in pain before falling to the ground, unmoving.

Shirou looked it over, unsure of what to make of it. He moved to poke it with his sword, but when the blade touched the creature's body, it melted into a black puddle. Shirou instinctively reeled back not confident that the puddle was completely safe. Unfortunately he didn't have long to ponder what it was as movement behind him distracted his attention. Shirou twirled around and found himself looking at a pack of whatever that other creature was. A quick headcount made it apparent he was vastly outnumbered; there we're close to twenty creatures, prowling back and forth, looking at him.

He grit his teeth, "What are these…."

Looking around he found a possible exit. About twenty feet away was an ajar gate that lead into someone's yard. The yard was sectioned off by a tall, concrete wall which would hopefully slow down the creatures long enough for him to put some distance between them and him. He took a step back and instantly regretted it. All of the creatures in front of him roared and flicked their tails. Dozens of barbed projectiles shot at him he found himself hard pressed to block the ones that were an immediate danger to him. He parried most of them, but one whizzed by his head, cutting his cheek. He winced again and felt something warm drip down his face; he knew immediately it was blood. Deciding he probably wasn't going to make it to the gate before they launched another volley at him he decided to go with option B.

"Saber!"

Shirou shouted the name into the air. He knew she wouldn't make it to him immediately, but he just had to hold out until she showed up. He gripped his blades tightly and then sprinted toward the group. Three in the front met his charge and lunged at him. Shirou stopped hard and kicked off the ground backwards. The two that were attacking from the sides collided mid air and the one attacking from the front jumped, using his comrades as a springboard, and pounced at Shirou. Shirou took a knee and held out his swords. The creature over shot its attack and it's underbelly skid across Shirou's weapons. It rolled across the ground and then quickly melted. Not breaking his attack, Shirou threw his swords at the two disoriented beasts and decapitated them.

Two more of the monsters dashed around their melting brethren. One circled wide around to flank him while the other rushed at Shirou. The young mage quickly resummoned both of his blades and moved to block the oncoming attack. As the creature in the front closed the distance, it quickly opened its mouth and chomped down on Shirou's black blade. The blade instantly shattered, but the delay in the creature's actions allowed him to stab upwards. The white sword pierced through the monster's chin and exited the top of it's 'head'. Shirou then heard the clacking of the flanking creature's claws close behind him. He turned his head and saw the creature crouch mid run, preparing to pounce. Time seemed to slow as the beast sprang from the ground at him. His arm moving painfully slow, he dropped the remains of his broken blade and moved his now free hand backwards. As he did so he thought of a longsword he'd worked on for one of his blacksmith commissions recently and willed it into existence. The sword materialized directly in front of the beast and skewered it.

The moment it melted, Shirou twirled his arm around and threw the longsword into the rest of them. It caught two in the side, killing them instantly, but their now reduced numbers seemed to cause the rest of them to all rush him in one go. Shirou rapidly summoned up his signature swords and braced himself. They were just about on him when a torrent of wind exploded from behind Shirou sending the creatures flying down the street. Shirou turned and saw Saber, weapon at the ready and fully armored, standing a short ways down the road. She quickly moved up to him and asked, "Shirou, are you alright?"

He nodded, the combat catching up with him, and panted, "Yeah. I'm fine."

Saber looked to the few remaining creatures and asked, "What are those?"

"I've got no idea," Shirou stated, "I was randomly attacked by them."

"There was nothing random about it!" cooed a voice from somewhere nearby.

"Who goes there?" Saber frowned.

There was a low laughter followed by a form flickering into existence on a nearby rooftop. Shirou squinted at him, trying to diffuse the brightness of the sun. It worked and he managed to get a decent look at the man. He looked to be of average height from the what Shirou could tell at the distance he was at. He was wearing a golden breastplate with a light blue sash resting around his neck and over his shoulders. Around his waist was a similarly colored skirt plated in metal and intricately woven sandals snaked up his feet and thighs. He gave a bow to them revealing a laurel wreath crowned atop his curly, brown locks. He righted himself and answered, "My name is of no importance, but you may call me Caster."

At the mention of his name, Saber and Shirou both took up defensive postures.

"A Servant," Shirou breathed.

Saber nodded and said, "We need to be careful. It's likely that he's the source of whatever those creatures are."

Caster clapped his hands together, "A brilliant deduction, but a wrong one none the less. My master is the one who manifests these Fell Cats. I simply have the prowess to control them. Like so."

Caster took up a rigid posture and then began humming. After just a few notes, the Fell Cats went rigid themselves, their gaze locked on Saber and Shirou. The Servant hummed another set of notes and this time the creatures began to vibrate, rapidly melting into goo. The large puddle that formed from this began bubbling and then, with surprising swiftness, reformed into a massive, monstrous shape. It was twice the size of Berserker with a similar physique. It's feet were hooves and it's treetrunk like arms sported wickedly sharp claws. It's beastial head was covered in a dripping mane of black ooze and two large tusks jutted from the creature's snout. It roared and began making it's way toward them. Shirou heard Saber curse and say, "Shirou, I'll handle the large one. You keep the smaller ones off of me."

Shirou nodded and began to focus on the small army of Fell Cats that were rising from the puddles left behind from his previous kills behind them, but had to dodge as three of them tackled Saber from the front into the ever growing pack. A swirl of wind exploded out from under the pile that was forming on top of her and sent a lot of them flying. The sheer number of them, now easily twice the size of the original pack, didn't allow for her to shift her focus. Shirou turned to the advancing monolith and said, "I guess it's you and me."

The creature roared at him in response and swept down at Shirou with one of his bulky arms. Shirou jumped back and, as the arm flew by, stabbed both his swords into the giant limb. The mage's body froze as his blades shattered on impact. Just how durable was this thing? His hesitation unfortunately cost him. The other arm flew down and snatched him from the ground. He felt a rib break as the creature's grip tightened. He yelled out in pain and tried to think of what to do. His standard weapons weren't going to cut it. He needed something more.

The creature brought Shirou close to his face and snorted at him. Shirou gagged slightly at the horrendous smell. When the creature opened its gigantic maw, Shirou realized what it was doing it; it was going to try and eat him. Shirou struggled at the immense grip holding him in place to no avail. As he was moved even nearer to the creature's mouth, an image flashed through his head. It was the weapon he needed. Now he just needed a free hand to summon it. His struggling increased, but the beast's hold was too much for him to break by himself. He was just at the creature's mouth when a voice bellowed, "EXCALIBUR!"

A beam of golden energy tore through over a dozen of the Fell Cats, vaporizing them, and then hit the larger creature in the arm. It effortlessly tore through it and Shirou fell to the ground with a thud. The monster roared in agony and began flailing about. Shirou heard Saber move next to him and ask, concern in her voice, "Are you injured Shirou?"

Shirou shook his head, but didn't say anything. He had to move before that behemoth regained it's composure. He sprang to his feet and dashed forward at the behest of Saber. Picturing the weapon in his mind, he willed it into his hands and gripped it tight. The moment he touched it, the red lance erupted with a blazing maroon aura. That seemed to get the monster's attention as it stopped its thrashing and roared at Shirou. Shirou roared back and thrust the lance forward. In the blink of an eye, the lance turned into a brilliant red arc of energy that wound its way around the creature's outstretched arm and stabbed into it's heart. The beast coughed up a large amount of black tar and stumbled back, collapsing to the ground. Its form persisted only a moment before it melted down. The lance Shirou was holding similarly evaporated.

Saber moved next to Shirou, shocked, and said, "Shirou….that was Gae Bolg, Lancer's Noble Phantasm. How did you-?"

"The same way I made your sword and Archer's. I thought about it and willed it form. Although it didn't feel as powerful as Lancer's. The aura was different."

"That's still incredible," Saber stated.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but stopped as something warm landed on her face. Shirou felt a pressure in his chest and looked down to see something protruding from it. He slowly turned his head and saw one of the Fell Cats growling at him, it's tail sticking in his back. He vaguely saw Saber's invisible sword slice through the tail and bore into the creature. As she freed him from the dark appendage, he realized that it had been the only thing keeping him on his feet. His vision darkened as he collapsed to the ground and soon he saw nothing but darkness.

 **Day 3: 11:46 AM: Tsurumi-ku - Osaka, Japan**

Rin impatiently tapped her foot on the ground. She looked at her watch and grit her teeth. She had no idea why she was doing that when she already knew how late she was. While Shirou checked around Umeada and Sakura's apartments, Rin had decided to look around the botanical gardens on the other side of the city. Sakura had mentioned she liked to go there and study; the atmosphere was apparently great for when someone needed clear thoughts. Rin had come to same conclusion as she traversed it earlier; it was definitely a place of serenity. Unfortunately that soothing effect had distracted her and she'd completely lost track of time. She was supposed to be meeting Shirou at Osaka Castle in barely ten minutes, but the train ride itself was going to take almost twenty minutes. The walk, or rather sprint in her case, would still add on another fifteen or so minutes. Rin was going to be extremely late and she hated it; she had built up a reputation of being punctual and she had planned on maintaining it.

Another glance at her watch caught the minute hand just as it ticked onto the large '10'. It was 11:50 and the train was nowhere in sight.

"Perfect," Rin grimaced, "Now the train is late too."

A squeal from behind her made her twirl around. She barely had time to register was was going on. Some sort of large black cat was in the middle of the crowd which was now dispersing from around it. As she gained a clearer look at the animal, it was very quickly obvious that it was not a normal cat. It's entire head was a single, large eyeball and it's black coat was pulsating with some sort of dark tar that glistened in the sunlight overhead rather than fur. It had a barbed tail that rapidly flicked something at her. The object only managed to make it halfway to her as a blue lance of energy smacked into it. The impact resulted in a small explosion. Another shot slammed into the main creature creating a larger explosion. The crowd was now in chaos as people beelined for the nearest exits. More of the creatures slinked through the running crowd and soon ten of them were prowling back and forth in front of her on the train platform.

Rin scowled; more distractions. She reached into her jacket pocket to retrieve some of the jewels she had on hand in case of emergency and the motion prompted two of the beasts in the front to roar at her. They started to move toward her, but a gust of wind swiftly moved through them. A figure, barely visible because of the speeds they were moving, stopped in front of Rin. As they did so, the creatures fell apart into numerous pieces. Rin frowned at the figure and said, "You're late, Archer."

Archer glanced back at her and said, "So are you, but we probably shouldn't be discussing our inability to keep to a schedule. We have more guests."

He nodded forward and Rin saw even more of the creatures crawling over the railing of the platform. Hearing movement behind her, Rin turned and saw another dozen or so of the monsters moving across the railway. She frowned and took out seven of her jewels. Turning to face the ones on the railway, Rin asked, "Archer, what are these?"

"No idea," he responded, "I've never seen this type of creature before."

Rin gave a nod and decided discovering what these creatures were would have to wait till they had dispatched them. Gripping her jewels, she said, "Don't leave a single one standing."

Archer chuckled slightly and then flashed out of her view and into the pack. Rin murmured an incantation under her breath and then threw her jewels at the oncoming creatures. They took only a second to respond and violently exploded right in front of her adversaries. The entire group of animals were encompassed in the blast. She smiled at how effective her weapons seemed to be, but that smile quickly faded as something shot out of the smoke and fire. A razor sharp tendril hit her shoulder and pierced right through it. Rin cried out in pain. The pain was only temporary, however, as Archer's blurred form whizzed in front of her, slicing the tendril from it's source. It immediately liquified and left only the gaping wound it had formed. Rin quickly moved her hand to the wound and projected an aura of healing magic over it. The wound knit and bound itself and in seconds the only evidence of the attack was the hole in her clothing. Archer's voice sounded behind her, "You're getting rusty."

Rin narrowed her eyes and scowled, "So are you. You should have blocked that attack before it hit me."

Archer gave another chuckled, "Well we both seem to be late and both of us are rusty. Any other similarities we should get out of the way before we continue?"

Rin didn't offer a response, clearly not finding the situation as amusing as Archer seemed to. Instead she focused on what was moving out from the waning smoke cloud in front of her. It was a large blob of the black ooze that the cat-like creatures seemed to be made from. Numerous eyes lay lopsidedly on it's body and a number of tentacles were flailing wildly at it's base. A sideways opening in the center of the mass revealed a large, tooth filled maw. It roared at her and escalated its advance. The moment it was in range, six of its tentacles lashed out at Rin. The mage dove to the side and skid along the platform. When her movement had stopped, she reached into her other pocket and felt around. She only had five more jewels prepared. She needed to make sure they were used opportunely.

Instead of using them now, she pulled her hand out and focused magical energy into her right arm. She extended her first finger and thumb into the shape of a gun and an orb of black energy formed at the tip of it. When it was fully charged, she shot it at one of the creature's eyes. The impact was dead on and the eye violently exploded into tar. Rin grinned and hopped to her feet. She quickly ran across the platform, firing shots at the creature's eyes, every shot hitting their mark. Only one eye remained by the time she reached the other side of the station and she aimed to take it out. Her world suddenly flipped upside down as one of the tentacles burst from beneath the platform and lifted her into the air by her ankle.

She squealed as her skirt began to fall down. One of her arms shot up to keep it from becoming a victim of gravity. Archer looked up in response and rolled his eyes, "Need a hand?"

Trying to not make her blush apparent, Rin turned her head away and growled back, "No! I've got this!"

With her free hand, she drove into her coat pocket and retrieved the final five gems she had at her disposal. She pulled them out and began chanting in German. The gems glowed brightly beneath her clenched fingers and the moment the blob opened its mouth again, she tossed them in. Its maw immediately closed and there was a pause. After just a few seconds, the bulbous mass of tar began increasing in size. Rin could hear the muffled explosions of her gems going off inside it. The creature reached its critical point and subsequently exploded from the pressure inside it. Rin was dropped and landed hard on her butt. Black ooze covered most of the train tracks and the platform including Rin and Archer.

Archer, having just finished with the last of the group of enemies he had been dealing with, swiped at the tar and brushed it off his coat, clearly unhappy that his clothing had been covered in the stuff. Rin too began wiping the crud off. Looking at Archer, she smiled proudly and said, "Told you I had it."

The Servant gave another eye roll and said, "Yeah. You apparently-RIN!"

Rin's head immediately twisted in the direction Archer's shocked eyes were looking in. She only briefly saw a severely wounded cat creature slinking from the tar puddle in front of her for the rest of her vision was obscured by the fast flying barb that bore into her skull.

 **Day 2: 11:05 PM: Airspace over Tomsk, Russia en route to Osaka, Japan**

Shirou awoke with a start, grasping at his chest. He looked down expecting something to be protruding from it, but saw that he was perfectly fine. His heart was beating rapidly, banging against his rib cage, and cold beads of sweat were strew across his face. He wipe his forehead with his arm and sunk back into his seat. It was just a dream. He looked to Rin and Saber, both sleeping opposite him, and let out a sigh of relief. They were both still sleeping and looked fine. Realizing their group was one member short, Shirou surveyed the cabin for signs of Archer. The mage frowned as he found no trace of the Servant. Exhaling sharply, he found sleep was swiftly returning to his eyes. Shrugging off Archer's absence, his vision gradually blurred as he drifted back into slumber.

A little over ten minutes later, Rin sat bolt up and exclaimed, "NOOOOO!"

She instinctively shielded her face and closed her eyes. When nothing happened, she slowly opened them and lowered her hands. Blinking at the dim light of the cabin, she placed a hand on her chest and let her head fall back on the seat. It was a dream; nothing more, nothing less. She took a couple deep breaths to calm down her pulse and then let out a long sigh. Thinking on the dream, she was impressed with how vivid it had been. She felt like she'd actually been living it. The sensations felt real and the environment had be incredibly authentic.

"I guess that's what lucid dreaming feels like…" she murmured.

After a moment of silence, she glanced at her friends. Fortunately her scream hadn't woken Saber nor Shirou. She relaxed into the cushion of her chair and murmured, closing her eyes, "Archer, do you have a moment?"

Rin peeked her eyes open when she received no answer. She looked around the cabin and realized that he wasn't visible.

"Archer?"

When she once again got no answer, she let out a low breath and once again closed her eyes. He was probably slacking off somewhere and Rin was too tired to push it; her thoughts could wait. Giving in to her exhaustion, Rin rapidly slipped back into sleep. Her weariness was so great that she didn't hear the soft music playing far below.

A cloaked figured grinned. A second figure, similarly cloaked, moved up next to him and asked, "Did you get everything we need?"

The first man nodded, "Of course!"

Holding his arms outstretched, he shook the fiddle he held in his hand and continued, "Music is the purest way to coerce information from the mind. My instrument is a perfect tool to project the tune that reveals the truth! I-"

Something whizzed by the man's head and stabbed into the ground. A form swiftly followed, taking the object and spinning around. Finishing his twirl, the newcomer pointed the object, now revealed to be a curved white sword, at the first man and then rapidly materialized a second black sword he pointed at the other man. The first cloaked figure gave a laugh, "Ah! Archer! How nice of you to join us! How fares thee this early morning?"

Archer was wearing a persistent frown on his face as he answered, "A lot better than you two are going to be. What did you do to Rin and the others?"

"Don't forget yourself!" the man added, "And nothing invasive, I promise. I simply...played some music."

"What does that mean? Explain now."

"Or what?" smiled the man.

Archer's eyes narrowed, switching back and forth between the two men he had at sword point, "Why are you so calm?"

The man cocked his head, "Oh? Is it not obvious? The answer to your question is simple: we didn't come alone."

Archer immediately turned on a dime as a new presence made itself know behind him. He attempted to block the attack, but the titanic figure that had appeared broke through both his swords and slammed into Archer's chest. Archer's vision instantly went black as the force of the blow knocked him unconscious.


End file.
